News Archive

The 33rd New York City Marathon November 3rd, 2002 It is now just one week

before the 2002 New York City Marathon. It seems many years since the events of

9/11 and the Marathon while in reality it is only last year. Last year’s

race was the first citywide event after 9/ll. There were football and baseball

games, but they only had 50-60.000 spectators. The marathon brought out two and

one half million people to celebrate life and our great city. It was a profound

statement aimed at the world that we New Yorkers, will not have our spirit

broken nor give into terrorism. Unfortunately, only 24,000 runners participated

last year instead of our usual 30,000. After the emotional marathon of last

year, it was their loss.

Looking forward to next weekend. We expect to return to our standard

30,000-31,000 runners in the race. Approximately 70,000 applied this year. For

the first time in the U.S. outside of Olympic Trials we will have a separate

women’s start 35 minutes before the masses and the elite men. With the

increased rise in visibility for women’s running started last year in

Berlin with the breaking of the 2:20 barrier, we felt it was time to showcase

the women. The spectators will be able to pick them out, not being surrounded

by men, and TV will be able to focus on them as well.

We have put together a very strong women’s field for this special

occasion. Headlined by Margaret Okaya, Ludmilla Petrova, Lorna Kilpagot, Marla

Runyon and Sonia O’Sullivan . The men’s field has Mark Carrol

(IRL), Tesfaye Jifar, Rogers Rop, Stefano Baldinia, Meb Keflezighi (USA) and

others.

The city, state and federal governments are working together to make the day

safe for the runners, spectators, volunteers and staff.

Good luck to all of you who are coming to our great City to run.

Allan Steinfeld, Race Director New York City Marathon