New York City Marathon: History, course, participants, all you need to know

The New York City Marathon, sponsored by Indian tech company Tata Consultancy Services, is underway in New York since Sunday morning. It is the largest marathon the in the world and this year the hype is even bigger as the event returned to pre-pandemic levels in terms of participation for the first time since 2019. 

The NYC Marathon is seeing the participation of both professional as well as recreational athletes. Reports say that close to 50,000 recreational athletes have registered for the race and they are in it for the experience, no matter the finish time. The organiser of the event is the Amateur Athletic Union.

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The history of the event dates back to 1970 when two New York Road Runners Club members, Vince Chiapetta and Fred Lebow, got together to organise a multiple-loop run event around Central Park in New York. 127 participants ran in the race and Gary Muhrcke, a New York City firefighter, won the race. Records show that only 55 participants were able to complete the entire race.

The marathon’s current expanded format, which includes a journey through five boroughs, happened for the first time in 1976. The NYC marathon also gained prominence as an iconic event in the city and people started taking it even more seriously. The completion rate of the run also saw a significant uptick through the 1980s as more professional runners took part in the event.

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Records show that 12,512 finishers in 1980 had risen significantly to 24,659 in 1989. Nearly double the number, and way higher than the 127 in its first edition.

In the current format, the race starts at Verrazano-Narrows Bridge on Staten Island and extends for 26.2 miles through Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and Bronx. At the Bronx, the route takes an about turn and the course heads back to Manhattan into Central Park, which is the end point of the race.