Today (16:15, Eurosport 2) the big apple will wear a holiday.
After the Corona plague led to its abolition last year, the jubilee edition of the New York Marathon will sweep to the track, which runs through all 5 quarters of the city, tens of thousands of runners and millions of cheering spectators.
Most of the participants who will jump from Staten Island to the bridge and Razano Narouz will run for pleasure, and will even be able to enjoy the iconic views of the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty.
Later, as they get closer to the finish line in Central Park, they too will forget about the scenery.
In contrast, the professional runners will concentrate on the result from the very first steps, and will not forget for a moment that winning the New York Marathon guarantees fame and significant financial prizes.
The winner will win $ 100,000, and those who reach the podium after him will receive $ 60,000 and $ 40,000 respectively (lower amounts will be split among the entire top ten).
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A legend on the streets of New York, Photo: AP
If that's not enough, there's a separate award set for the top five American runners, and the fastest of the Americans will win an additional $ 25,000.
Alongside these, we will mention the personal rewards from various sponsors or organizations, who are interested in encouraging one competitor or another.
For example, Ben Tru, a veteran American athlete who will run his first competitive marathon in New York with the stated goal of finishing as the first American in it, will receive a generous grant from the nonprofit that organizes the marathon for his participation.
Tru's coach stated that if the track had been completely flat, his trainee would have finished it in two hours and 9 minutes.
Unfortunately, the track actually includes ascents, especially on the bridges between the boroughs, Fifth Avenue and Central Park, and in any case to win you have to run faster.
Kenyan Jeffrey Camware won in New York two years ago with a time of two hours 8 minutes and 13 seconds.
This year he is not participating, and four big runners will compete for the premiere: running legend Cannisa Bakala from Ethiopia, Nagia slaves from the Netherlands who won money in the Tokyo Olympic Marathon, 2016 New York Marathon Champion Girmey Gabrielsi from Eritrea and Kenyan Albert Courier, who finished second in this track in 2019.
The women's competition will be no less tense.
The winner of the Gold Medal in Kenya, the Jepchirchir Prize, will try to beat a variety of strong candidates, including the American Molly Seidel, who lost to Jafchirchir by only 26 seconds and came third, Halelia Johannes from Namibia, the world championship medalist from two years ago, And Ruthi Aga from Ethiopia, winner of the Tokyo Tokyo Marathon 2019.
Who is sure to reach an unprecedented achievement, and not just to the finish line, she has run long distances that Lane Flanagan.
The 40-year-old American, who won the New York Marathon 4 years ago and apparently retired from professional sports two years ago, will become the first person to complete 6 marathons belonging to the World Marathon Majors in six weeks.
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Six marathons in six weeks,
In a completely unexpected way, this peak will be made possible thanks to the corona.
Due to the plague the marathons of Boston, London and Tokyo were postponed from spring to October, and the fall of 2021 was suddenly blessed with 6 races on followers.
Flanagan realized that such an opportunity would not return, and jumped at it immediately.
In order not to be satisfied with the actual participation, she set herself a goal to complete each of the six marathons in less than three hours.
To understand the magnitude of the effort, I will note that during her illustrious career, which included podiums at the Beijing Olympics and the World Athletics Championships, Flanagan typically ran no more than two marathons a year.
In contrast, her marathon series this time included the Boston and Chicago marathons, which took place 24 hours apart!