All About the World Marathon Majors

Marathon running has become a very popular sport to participate in and be a spectator of in the past decade. However many people are unaware of the new worldwide competition that marathon running has become through the world marathon majors. The World Marathon Majors is a competition that began in 1996. It is a series of 5 marathons in Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York City (the Olympic marathon and IAAF World Champions Marathon are also included when applicable) that elite runners compete in for a prize of 1 million dollars to be split by the top male and women finisher after all 5 races.

The way the scoring system works for the World Marathon Majors is by a point system. You receive points based on what place you come in and then the top four scores out of the five races are counted in your final score. The points for each place are as follows:

1st place = 25 points
2nd Place = 15 points
3rd Place = 10 Points
4th Place = 5 Points
5th Place = 1 Point

The beginning of the world marathon majors has really made the sport of marathon running more popular for people to not only participate in but to also watch. The World Marathon Majors released that annually there are over 5 million on-course spectators, more than 250 million TV viewers, 300,000 applicants, and 150,000 participants. The World Marathon Majors is also a strong force for generating funds for charity. Annually the World Marathon Series raises over 80 million dollars for charity. This event is also very beneficial for the cities that host these races because it has been calculated that it has an economic impact of over 400 million dollars!!

The World Marathon Series is an amazing event that allows people from all over the world to compete with each other, to raise money for charity, and to stimulate the world economy. The popularity of this event has proven to be strong over the past 13 years and I’m sure will be for many years to come.