The world’s top five marathons have come together to launch a World Marathon Majors (WMM) series (source : coolrunning.com). The series will be launched with the start of the Boston marathon this April. The marathons part of this series are:
- Boston (Apr)
- London (Apr)
- Berlin (Sept)
- Chicago (Oct)
- New York (Nov)
Points will be awarded to runners for top-five finishes in these events (over two years), and the overall mens and womens winners will share the $1 million prize.
I would say that an idea like this would be great for India. The problem is that we need to have a few big races of our own to make this popular. We have a big one in Mumbai marathon, which is now an annual event. There are others which are also annual events, like Pune, Thane, Allahabad and Chennai, but they lack the organizational infrastructure, sponsors, and the attracting power of a big city marathon, like Mumbai. Events in Delhi and Bangalore hold promise, but they still do not have an annual calendar.
It is ripe time for the right people to step in and take us to the next level. Launching a series like the WMM for Indian athletes would be a great step in this direction. A problem with that is a limited season of running here, given the climate in India, but I am sure this can be worked out. October to April is a reasonable six month duration to put it all together.