Is VALENCIA the premier elite marathon in the world now? 🌍

Needs to get rid of pacers. The sport is about competition, that’s would should come first instead of a glorified time trial.

I think between the Olympics, WCs, and Boston/NYC, there are enough non-paced races to fill that category. Races like Berlin, London, and Valencia are run for speed, so pacers make sense. I respect the opinion, though.

Agreed. We can have rabbited and non-rabbited races. I prefer the unpaced ones, so I always prefer watching Boston and NY.

Yes, and it has been for a while.

London still has the deepest fields year after year.

I'm also curious if Valencia could see a boost in elite participation over the next two years with both the WCs and the Olympics coming in August 2023 & 2024, respectively. Almost 5 months would be adequate turnaround for pros that want to get one more marathon in before EOY.

You have swallowed brasher's hype. Look at how steeply London drops off after the Top 5 or 6. I think brasher has worked out that its a waste of his time and a few thousand dollars incl travel to have an east African unknown run 2.07 to 2.09 and place 13th or whatever. People say its not the fastest course,which is sort of true, but it was fast enough for a woman to run 2.15 in old shoes.

Physically, yes or close. Field-wise no because the marathons that offer the most appearance money attract the best fields. London invariably offers the most appearance money so it attracts the best fields. Appearance money is much more desirable to the top marathoners because it is guaranteed money, unlike prize money.

Not yet.

It certainly seems to be the best race for sub-elites. The fields are incredibly deep, and they'll only continue to get deeper based on this year's results.

P.S. Another poster commented on doing away with pacemakers, and while I don't entirely agree, I think there needs to be a rule that 'pacemakers cannot continue beyond 35k'. In the women's race in particular, it completely ruins the spectacle and has too much of an influence on the outcome, when a male athlete paces one female athlete in particular through the final stages.

I don't know if I agree with this, but certainly the pacing debacle on the women's side was the one blot on an otherwise awesome race.

Dubai might regain the #1 spot when covid restrictions no longer hits it as hard as the last few years.

The superior commentary means I prefer anything hosted overseas. American marathon commentators stink.

It has been the fastest marathon for a few years now, if we look at time at No.10/20/100 in the past 4-5 years:

For time at 10th place, Valencia has the fastest time starting 2018. Amsterdam has the next fastest time. Then Tokyo might be the third.

For time at 20th place, Valencia has the fastest time in 2019, 2022, and second fastest time in 2018, 2021. The next two fastest marathons seem to be Tokyo and Lake Biwa.

For time at 100th place, Valencia, Tokyo and Berlin are close with Valencia and Tokyo trending faster. CIM also posts consistent fast time here.

Fun stats, the fastest time at 100th place I have seen so far happened in Lake Biwa (forgot whether it's 2020 or 2021) in a time of 2:15:19.

Does anyone have any info on what kinds of appearance fees the pros are seeing? Even rough estimates?

NYC and Boston can't have World Records- I wish they would make exceptions to that rule.

That kind of negates the need for pacers. But, in the end, I prefer a non-paced race.

I'd love to have someone with actual knowledge tell us.

I remember in the late 70's Viren reportedly (by another elite athlete) got 50K for a track race.

Back in the 80's it was reported one Boston Marathon broadcast said they had millions in appearance fees. I think the number they gave was something like 10 million.

I wish these would be made public.

Does NN not have contracts with WMM? I'd imagine they're going to follow the money rather than run any race they choose.

Gidey is NN, so I don't think so.

The depth of 'committed amateur' field is absolutely staggering. This year, the guy who ran 2:30:00 was 380th. For reference, he would've been 124th in this year's Boston and 152nd in Berlin. I personally ran a good race and didn't even place in the first thousand (!!!) with a time that would at the very worst case bring me age group placing in any local race on Earth. You just hop on in a group matching your ability and run the time you want.

The treatment such runners get isn't that great though. There are no designated toilets for sub238 and sub250 groups. Elite portapotties are locked up and commoner restrooms are half a mile back the starting corridor without any navigational signs pointing to them. So everyone in faster corrals is sh1tting in the bushes wiping their asses with whatever. Also, the city isn't a terribly nice place to visit in December: the weather is unstable and you're hot or cold all the time, public transit takes forever to get anywhere and Uber just never comes, half of the restaurants are closed and the ones which work open for 3 hours in the morning, not earlier than 9 am, take a siesta and re-open for another 3 in the night. They also list the prices for 1/2 of paella and for 1/4 of lobster to trick you into thinking these are not overpriced(40 euro paella is bonkers when you can get a toast and coffee for breakfast for 1.50).

So for anyone hoping to jump on that "amateur glory" train and break 230 in Valencia, I would advise to rent an apartment with kitchen within walking distance of Central Market and City of Arts and Sciences(start/finish/expo) to avoid using public transit and not to depend on eating out that much. Also make sure it has decent heating. And bring a roll of TP with you to the start area: even if you make it to a portapotty, it'll probably be out.