Breaking: San Diego pulls out of hosting World Road Champs 4 days after qualifier !!

Yeah the average high the past 14 years on race day is 53 degrees

San Diego sometimes has a laid-back culture, and mass-race participants sometimes wait until the last-minute to sign up. This event maybe needed more advertising for awareness. Graphs could be plotted to show historically the typical timeframe in athlete signups. But maybe mass participation in these types of events is being dialed-back by potential entrants due to the current economic inflation and associated uncertainty?

Where do you see 276 entrants? Is there now actually an article out there citing that? My friend in CA was interested in running all three mass-participation events, but I’m not sure whether he had signed up yet.

All that said, it is not clear why an ‘economic boon’ should even be expected from this event, nor why that expectation is expected from some (still unnamed) parties in this affair.

Going back many successive years, San Diego has put on the Rock and Roll Marathon that must obviously float itself (since that group is not in the business of losing money.) Many other successful Half-Marathons are run in San Diego.

I just got an email from the organizer saying that my half marathon entry fee will be refunded in the next couple of weeks.

There's 250,000 runners at the beach boardwalks every day in So Cal. 2,000,000 on Holiday weekends. So paying an entry fee that goes for Police Union bribes to pay $400,000/yr cops more double overtime pay is not appreciated in So Cal.

“Not appreciated”, yet San Diego keeps selling out other Half-Marathons.🙄

We are still waiting for answers. Do you think the Police Union jacked up their prices for this particular event?

Please Email them back asking why it was canceled.

Exactly.

it hadn't been promoted. I stand by the 10,000 figure easily in a week if a call had gone out.

My no name Turkey Trot in Connecticut got 1500 (and most people sign up week of)

Hard to imagine that you could not pull off the world championship with a 3 million dollar sponsor. Looking at past results usually about 200 runners so let’s put it at 250. Add 100 coaches and dignitaries and you are up to 350 people event pays for. If you spend 4,000 each you are up to 1.4 million. If you have hundreds of room nights you are paying for you should get any conference rooms you need without being charged. Add 400k in prize money and 100k to cover timing, police (15k for spectator friendly 4-6 loop course), sound, giveaways, insurance, etc. Total cost of championship should be around 2 million unless I am missing something. They should be able to pay staff and hold this event without depending on entry fees from a mass participation race.

You actually ran in that Turkey Trot ? In 2024 ?

Please tell us more about your current running habits. It gets to the core of this site's credibility.

Weldon, I appreciate the site (well, some things about it), but this is an out of touch take. Thanksgiving is the biggest running day of the year--it isn't comparable to a random weekend in September--and the price point on your Turkey Trot is almost certainly substantially lower than the San Diego World Champs. Also, those Turkey Trotters (and even 95%+ of marathoners or other "serious" runners) are out there for personal reasons, not anything to do with the pros/championships (even though I do believe pro fields add to the profile of the event), which seems to be the reason you think people would support/register for this event.

Also, 10,000 people registering for a road race in a week is around or above what established, major but non-WMM marathons do across all distances in the week that they launch--races like Houston, Twin Cities, Grandma's, and CIM. The idea that a first-time race (that has already proven to be, to put it delicately, not strong at marketing) could match or exceed that in a week "if a call had gone out" is wishful thinking.

I am bummed this race isn't happening, but it wouldn't have been nearly as easy to "save it" as you think.

I have the email of someone who works at the organizing committee. Yesterday I emailed them to ask what happened. This morning they emailed me back and said that they weren't allowed to comment beyond what has already been said.

So unfortunately I wasn't able to get any new information, but at least I tried.

...but a perfect site

kiawahresort.com

Kiawah Island Golf Resort - The Kiawah Island Marathon

KIGR

Find complete details on the Kiawah Island Marathon and Half Marathon. Both races are sanctioned by the USA Track & Field Organization.

Link:kiawahresort.com/recreation/kiawah-isl...

I was the first official registrant for this Event after the registration launched. I also Finished the Half Marathon Mass Race at the Inaugural edition of this Event in 2013 in Latvia. Having been slated to be an ambassador for this Event, I was waiting for a phone call from the marketing team which I never received. World Athletics gave this Event a huge promo booth at the Chevron Houston Marathon Expo. Speaking with the registration coordinator there is how I confirmed that there were only 267 entrants confirmed. A sad day for both San Diego and USATF. Would like to see another American City step up to the plate and bid as a replacement but I have a feeling the reassigned 2025 Event will be based in Europe again.

Thanks for the reply. Houston is not Southern California, so a little more marketing and awareness, emphasizing registering early, would probably have gone a long way. The mass races, advertised as being associated with a World Championship, would have pulled runners from south of the border, all the way up to the Bay Area, and eastward toward Arizona.

Seb Coe said he wanted to get Athletics to pull in the average mass-participant runner. This was a HUGE opportunity to do that, since Southern California holds collectively the largest group of mass-participation runners.

This was a HUGE fail on WA.

Exactly. Who at WA thinks they are going to pull more runners anywhere else in the USA besides Southern California, and San Diego in particular.

One point I haven’t seen mentioned is that there is a popular Half-Marathon in San Diego, going back many years, that is put on around the same date. Did some local associated with that event somehow stir-up-the-pot to get the Championship cancelled?

As long as you like a bazillion turns. That course sucks.