Sydney marathon becomes world's 7th "major"

or you could do Gold Coast or Melbourne for a better race experience in a better city.

WMM hardly has anything to do with elite running anymore, since they lowered the prize money from $500k to $50k. Remember Sammy Wanjiru's epic Chicago win with $500k on the line? I hardly see anyone talking about WMM standings anymore, and they mean nothing for Olympic qualification (that was replaced with the WA platinum label).

I wonder how many people will still do all 7, soon to be 9 majors to get the big medal. Many people could get to all six with a 9 hour flight.

I have been involved with race for over 13 yrs. The evaluation was over 3 years, everything looked at, the organisation, course, race quality, race operations on day etc etc. Of the 3 new cities, the Chinese one was changed, Cape Town didn't meet all criteria last year ( have to meet it two years in row) and Sydney is the only one so far to be successful. Evaluators were from all the other majors and were 'all over it', even in lead car convoy

For those that ask "who will come', the train from City under the harbour to start was filled with US age groupers because it was the World Age Group champs. Stop thinking you are the centre of universe, We are closer to China and India which has bigger potential in numbers than you lot.

Gold Coast, yeah OK, fast course and great area. Melbourne "better city", you've gotta be kidding, Gold Coast and Sydney leave it for dead, both course and city and surrounding areas.

I wonder if they're going to give 6-Stars who do Sydney a special add on to their existing six star medal or if they'll get a brand new 7-star medal.

If you think Australia is not a popular place for Asians to visit, you've clearly never been to Australia.

Asian tourism is basically the backbone of the Australian economy.

I'm getting pretty tired of Sydney McLaughlin's attention seeking stunts. She doesn't even run marathons...

I ran all the majors in Boston, NYC, Chicago, Tokyo, London and Berlin. I don't run Sydney. That's on the other side of the world. Too far away from Europe.

No, I have never been to Australia because I worked in Tokyo and not a single friend or coworker would choose to visit Australia. It's far and not a great reputation. We would travel to Hawaii, Busan, Europe, or LA. Not trying to be confrontational but it's simply not a popular choice.

Saying Australias backbone is Asian tourism is not a brag. It means no one else is going there so proves my point.

What, the knockout game isn’t fun for you?

The backbone of the Australian economy is building sh!tbox houses on tiny blocks and digging sh!t out of the ground, selling it, and buying it back for a higher price, actually.

Agreed, coming from someone who is from Melbourne! I did both Sydney and Melbourne this year and the difference between the two races - both in the actual course and race management was night and day.

The majors have forgotten that they were "majors" because of history and prestige of those marathons. Sydney has none of that. Zero motivation and go run it.

And what they looked at was the organization of it and to be fair that has to be on par with other majors but its not the reason to make a race a major. They are shooting themselves in the foot with this, similar to how Ironman has cheapened its brand by moving half the World Championship to Niece.

You might want to think about where your anger comes from?

Ridiculous that 3 of the 'Majors' are in America. Ridiculous American bias. Positive another major has been added to the list. There should be at least 1 Major in Africa and South America. Another should be added to Asia given size of continent [As money has been the big dictator of the 'Major' label in the past it'll likely be in China]. Agree with previous poster here that 'Major' label is a bit of a joke.

I can feel the climate changing even more as people book their flights to Australia to run for a few hours.

but they get a special pokemon medal?

I've written a column about their expansion plans. I'm not a fan:

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2024/11/expanding-into-irrelevance-world-marathon-majors-expansion-is-ill-conceived-unless-they-do-this/

I think the whole six star/seven star thing is ridiculous and all about making money. But, if they want to make it somewhat meaningful, they should have age-group time standards that need to be hit qualify for the race and to earn that star. 29 and under male=2:55 qualifying, 2:50 on race day.