American Bias wrote:
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.
The reason 3 of the majors are in the US is because those races were historically the biggest, most competitive races in the world. The idea of the majors was not to arbitrarily bestow a title on certain races, but to create a formal organization around the races that everyone already recognized as the most important. In 2006, when WMMs began, you could have polled 100 runners and asked them to name the top 5 marathons in the world. You'd probably have gotten fewer than 10 total votes for any race other than Boston, NYC, Chicago, London, or Berlin.

