With the runners ready but ravaged residents still recovering from Sandy, this weekend's New York City Marathon was canceled Friday when Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed course and yielded to mounting criticism that this was no time to run a race. The death toll in the city stood at 41 and thousands of shivering people were without electricity, making many New Yorkers recoil at the idea of assigning police officers to protect a foot race and evicting storm victims from hotels to make way for runners. Bloomberg, who as late as Friday morning insisted that the world's largest marathon should go on as scheduled Sunday, changed course hours later after intensifying opposition from the city controller, the Manhattan borough president and sanitation workers unhappy that they had volunteered to help storm victims but were assigned to the race instead. The mayor said he would not want "a cloud to hang over the race or its participants." "We cannot allow a controversy over an athletic event -- even one as meaningful as this -- to distract attention away from all the critically important work that is being done to recover from the storm and get our city back on track," the mayor said. Source: ESPN
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDDsvHZpui4&feature=g-all-u]New York City Marathon Essay - YouTube[/ame]
Right call but a little late. The Knicks, Nets, Giants and Jets shouldn't be playing in the area at this point however either.
I disagree with that for the people that go to the games its a escape from reality for atleast 3 hours
So then why cancel the marathon? It would have brought in a TON of money to a ravaged economy right now as well as allowed a release to many more people than will show up at any sports games. All sports should be off until next weekend. Think of all the traffic to get into games in and out of the city and how much gas(that they don't have) this will waste. Plus think of all the half eaten hot dogs, bags of popcorn, bottles of water, etc that will be thrown away that could be shipped to places where folks haven't had power in a week/don't have houses. Bad taste all around.
I see your point respect your opinion i just dont agree The marathon is diffrent it causees so many more problems like the fact that they have to close off all the streets where they are running.
I feel bad for the 30 thousand runners who where in the city ready to run the race already. Id hope they'd be recomped some how. Otherwise getting back to the city for the next race might not be an option for some of then.
I have a friend who flies in from Oregon each year to run it and he said his hotel honored his cancellation and didn't charge him anything as did Southwest who he was flying with. Luckily he decided Wednesday that he wasn't going to be participating since he assumed it'd be cancelled and these places did it on good faith. Hope more like it. edit: Southwest comped him a flight of equal value, didn't refund the money.
The people at the games aren't the suddenly homeless, didn't lose all their possessions and just decide to go to a game or go to a game to get their minds off of other peoples serious problems. Hell, the people most affected either lost their TV's or electricity and can't even watch it to "escape reality". That they're playing football and cancelling the marathon is perplexing. The estimated $100 Million+ lost to the city by cancelling the marathon could have gone a long way in helping those in true need. Business owners who lost their homes certainly could have used the extra bucks today.
