Why does NO ONE care about the WC MARATHON?

because you don't get much other than a piece of medal for winning

The WC marathon means diddly that's why.

I believe all world Champions recieve $60,000. They started awarding prize money in 1997. 1-8 places all get money, This Months Track and Field news broke it down.

Because the Olymipic trials are in Novemember. Some feel like they have has to choose between training for the trial or this...I rather be in the Olympics.

If you were one of those top tier elite marathoners, why would you run a tough slog in the heat and humidity of Osaka for that kind of pay day? I don't know how much these elite marathoners get in appearance fees for the big 5 (Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago, NYC). I suspect the appearance fees alone are as much as 10x as much as they could get for winning any prize money at Osaka. Slogging out a 2:16 in Osaka is not going to increase your appearance fees any. But it would interrupt your training and your chance at running a stellar performance at one of the big 5. Just how many peak performances do you think an elite marathoner can run in a single year?

Really?! Being the World Champion doesn't increase your fee enough to make it worthwhile? I think in the long term a WC medal will guarantee more $ over the next 2-3 years than a victory in a major - unless that comes in a blazing time.

I disagree.

I don't mean to take anything away from the medal winners. Obviously they ran well, and showed extraordinary discipline in running well under such awful conditions. But that is the point - the conditions are so awful that a significant number of marathoners don't want to burn their one or two annual chances for this kind of test. No matter what the conditions, the fact is that a 2:20 marathon was highly competitive here - and that just isn't going to get a whole bunch of athletes excited.

I agree with you, Why is it?? Race officials at the starting line looked out over the field of hundreds and saw just as you saw,that there were NO Ritz, no Tergat, no Haile, no Meb, no Baldini, no KK, and no Churyoit. They were going to stop the race knowing that no body was gonna watch it. But some dumb rookie accidently hit the gong as he was dismantling it and the race started. Of course all the cheering throng along the streets were not REALLY watching such a non-star-studed-field, they were yelling at other people on the opposite side of the street. The runners were just in the way, that's why.

The big marathons hold all the cards. If the WC put up the same kind of cash and perks then top runners would run it again. The WC lost the best marathoners right about the time KK started to win the Chicago Marathon. Chicago was very good to its athletes and paid large sums to bring athletes in and then pays the winners very well. Chicago started the domino effect and now we have the World Marathon Majors. If you're a top marathoner why waste your time at the WC? The WC marathon now is no better than the Pan-Am games marathon, just another stepping stone in and up and coming runner's career. I wish it wasn't like that, but money talks.

Alan

World Marathon Majors, do not favor the elite marathoners, they promote their own races. They only offer to the winner, in an effort to narrow the elite field as much as possible. The winner gets $500K, the second is thrown to the lions!

Ironically, they included WC and OC into the system,

yes Osaka WC is in the Majors and the winner earned 25 points, but he is not in a position to threaten the leader.

http://www.worldmarathonmajors.com/US/home.php

we all saw that the majority of elites did not participate becuse the prize purse system sucks!

It is far from reality, but sometimes I wish elites forming a union some day and demand their rights!

Jaycee Are wrote:

I believe all world Champions recieve $60,000. They started awarding prize money in 1997. 1-8 places all get money, This Months Track and Field news broke it down.

A good marathoner, particularly a good American could get $80000+ to start at Chicago or New York. Then there's prize money. You get zero to start the World Champ marathon.

Having the world title is nice, but usually the best marathoners in the world are racing/winning the big 5 and maybe a few others.

Only the Olympic marathon can attract the very best for free. In the marathon, a world title means less than a big city win (and is also less money).

I think that the World Championship marathon still means a little more then a 'big' city marathon but it's relevance has diminished a bit over the years. Back in '87 the first four finishers were Wakahuri, Salah, Bordin and Moneghetti. During the late '80's these guys were regarded as the best going around. In '95 I can remember Fizz and Ceron having a great battle with Dos Santos up there. They were some of the world's best at the time. The conditions were always likely to be hot in Osaka and I think that this scared athletes away. In a cooler climate someone like Haile might have been on the start line.

Could the #1 marathoner in the world in the 1980s get close to $500,000 to start a big city marathon?

JoggerGerry wrote:

I agree with you, Why is it?? Race officials at the starting line looked out over the field of hundreds and saw just as you saw,that there were NO Ritz, no Tergat, no Haile, no Meb, no Baldini, no KK, and no Churyoit. They were going to stop the race knowing that no body was gonna watch it. But some dumb rookie accidently hit the gong as he was dismantling it and the race started. Of course all the cheering throng along the streets were not REALLY watching such a non-star-studed-field, they were yelling at other people on the opposite side of the street. The runners were just in the way, that's why.

It surely would have been a completely different race with Ritz in it.

Runningart2004 wrote:

The WC marathon now is no better than the Pan-Am games marathon, just another stepping stone in and up and coming runner's career.

Really? How many 2:06, 2:07 or 2:08 PB marathoners were on the starting line for Pan-Ams?

escargot wrote:

Really?! Being the World Champion doesn't increase your fee enough to make it worthwhile? I think in the long term a WC medal will guarantee more $ over the next 2-3 years than a victory in a major - unless that comes in a blazing time.

That's the point, it might be worth it if you win, but only one person can do that.

Unfortunately, money DOES talk. But some are in a position to ignore that. I think money does talk particularly louder for Americans and Kenyans. As for Japanese, they take World Champs very seriously particularly because it serves as the Olympic Trial as well. They sent pretty much their best runners this time. I got a message from BAA last December because Tosa, who finished third in April, hadn't cashed her check yet! When I relayed that message to her, she didn't even know how much she won by finishing third there!!! Her goal, all along, is to go to Beijing. She could have made much more by running London or other big-cash marathons around the world, but quite often that doesn't fit in the plan so she doesn't. Same with Ogata. We've started to see more Japanese runners running oversea marathons and there's nothing wrong with picking up extra cash here and there. But they still don't do it as much as they could simply because their goal-setting is not simply to make money.

I think the truth of the fact is that the Olympics still stand above anything else (and so it goes for a lot of them; again, for some, money comes even before Olympics) and in that respect as well, athletes and coaches should look at WC as a great opportunity as a stepping stone for the Olympics. I personally feel it's a great idea to include WC as a part of Olympic Trial but, here again, because the trial race sponsors pay big bucks and they want their race to be THE trial. So we'll continue to pick someone who runs a fast time in the cold weather marathon in November and they'll face hot and humid condition of the Olympics.

By the way, what the heck was that marathon coverage on TV last night? I heard it was a great battle of 3rd, 4th and 5th places. They (American TV) skipped right through that and showed, what, 3 minutes of the entire race??? I've never seen such a sad marathon coverage in my life...

Essentially no appearance fees and comparatively paltry prize money. It's still a good developmental championship marathon, it has its place even if that place is not at the very highest level of competition.