SUNDAY'S CHICAGO MARATHON TO BE "A CELEBRATION OF HUMANITY"
By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2018 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved - Used with permission.

CHICAGO (04-Oct) -- Sunday's 41st Bank of America Chicago Marathon will feature about 45,000 runners from 140 countries, all 50 states, and all 50 wards of Chicago.  The race --which has grown 43% in finishers since 2008 and is now the second-largest marathon in the world-- is simultaneously an elite-level sports competition and a community celebration which will generate $338 million in economic impact for what is America's third-largest city with 2.7 million residents.

"People connect; it creates a community," said Paul Lambert, Chicago Market president of Bank of America, at a press conference here this morning.  Lambert, whose son Andy is running Sunday's race, continued: "When you drill down to the base line of it, it's a celebration of humanity."

The flat, 42.195-kilometer course, which starts and finishes in Grant Park next to Lake Michigan, will take the runners through nearly all of the city's best-known neighborhoods like The Loop, Greektown, Little Italy, and Chinatown.  The race will be broadcast live on the local NBC affiliate, and organizers estimate that 1.7 million spectators will line the route.

"It's become a global event," said executive race director, Carey Pinkowski.  "It's larger than life."

Five runners --Randy Burt, Henry Kozlowski, George Mueller, Ron Williams, and Joe Antonini-- have run all 40 editions of the race, and all of them plan to start on Sunday.

"They are the ironmen of this great event," remarked Pinkowski.

The front of the race will get the most attention, and rightly so.  Pinkowski has assembled a powerful elite field featuring Olympic and World Championships medalists Abel Kirui of Kenya; Mo Farah of Great Britain; Galen Rupp of Portland, Ore., the race's defending men's champion.  Pinkowski is particularly excited by his men's field, and sees a chance for Dennis Kimetto's 2013 course record of 2:03:45 to be broken, especially since he has re-introduced pacemakers which have been absent here since 2015.

"There's just something about the competition," Pinkowski said. "Athletes know there's a tradition here.  Athletes know that it's a big deal to win here."  He added: "I think that the field on the men's side is one of the deepest we've ever had."

The race winners will each pocket $100,000 out of a total prize money purse of $803,500.  Course record bonuses of $75,000 are also on offer (2:03:45 / 2:17:18), and the top USA men and women will earn $15,000.  Moreover, the two wheelchair champions will also earn $15,000 each.

"I love the sense of community," said five-time Chicago wheelchair champion Kurt Fearnley of Australia, who has never finished lower than second here.  "I love this course because the final 400 (meters) has been good for me," he added, referring to the small uphill before the finish where he has powered away from his opponents.  "I love it; I eat that up."

The Bank of America Chicago Marathon is part of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, and is the second race of AbbottWMM Series XII which will conclude next September in Berlin.


PHOTO: Galen Rupp winning the 2017 Bank of America Chicago Marathon in 2:09:20 (photo by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly)