Sport
November 2014New York Marathon
One of the world's landmark road-running races, the New York Marathon regularly draws up to 105,000 applicants. There is $600,000 in prize money, so the race attracts an impressive array of international athletes, as well as amateur enthusiasts.
The event draws crowds of up to two million, with worldwide television audiences of over 300 million. It is enthusiastically supported by the local population.
It started as a small specialist event, attracting just 127 runners to Central Park in 1970. In 1976 its founder, Fred Lebow, redrew the course so that it followed a route through all five boroughs: Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, Manhattan. The reconfigured course drew the city together and attracted worldwide recognition.
Encompassing five boroughs, crossing five bridges, and finishing in glamorous Central Park in mid-town Manhattan, this is a city marathon par excellence.
