The World Marathon Majors is a series of the best and most famous marathons in the world and includes the marathons of London, Berlin, Chicago, Tokyo, New York City, Boston, the IAAF World Championships Marathon and the Olympic Marathon.
The Series started originally with five marathons in 2006, the Tokyo marathon was added in 2013. The New York City Marathon was not part of the World Marathon Majors in 2012, the event got cancelled that year because of the aftermath of hurricane Sandy.
More than 240,000 slots in total are available for professional and recreational runners for the marathons that are part of Marathon Majors and attract athletes from over 125 countries. The participating marathons attract more than 7,500,000 live spectators every year.
The organizers of these marathon events united in order to increase the interest in their prestigious events and advance the sport of running.
Marathon Majors – Interesting For Athletes
The Marathon Majors Series are also attractive to athletes: there is a competition which lasts two years and athletes that finish in the top five in one of the participating marathons get points, the winner gets 25 points, number 2 receives 15 points, the third place is worth 10 points, No. 4 gets 5 points, while the athlete that finishes in fifth position receives 1 point.
The male and female athlete at the end of the two-year cycle with the highest number of points, divide the prize money of one million U.S. dollars.\
The winner must have participated in at least one of the Marathon Majors per year and if a marathon runner participated during two years in more than four World Marathon Majors and has therein points scored, the top four in terms of results remains standing.
Besides the financial part, the World Marathon Majors also offer an interesting challenge to the individual athletes, because the events are being held on a wide variety of courses and during different times of the year and attracts the best marathon runners worldwide, which means that the Championships takes place at a high level.
(Source: WorldMarathonMajors)
