Hot Chicago Marathon raises crowd concerns

CHICAGO – There are young ones, old ones, thin ones and fat ones. Some show up in chicken suits, others in G-strings. There are highly trained athletes, of course, but also many people who look like a starting line is, well, the last place they should be.\nThese days, big-city marathons cast an increasingly wide net, drawing tens of thousands of serious and not-so-serious runners to prestigious races in New York, Chicago, Boston and elsewhere.\nThe incentive to draw as many people as possible is clear enough: The 26.2-mile marathons generate millions of dollars for cities that host them, as well as for the sporting-goods industry.\n“The bottom line is marathons today are big business,” said Patrick Moscaritolo, head of the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau.\nBut after a brutally hot Chicago Marathon descended into disarray this past weekend – with hundreds of runners vomiting or collapsing and organizers forced to call off the race – questions have been raised about whether marathons have become too all-inclusive and too focused on money.\nThey certainly have grown – and fast.\nThe number of people taking part in the Boston Marathon, for instance, has more than doubled over the past decade, despite the race requiring qualifying times for most runners. From 1997 to 2007, the number of runners grew from 10,471 to 23,869, said Boston Marathon spokesman Marc Chalufour.\nThe Chicago Marathon, which has no qualification requirements, has grown from around 16,000 runners pre-registering in 1997 to around 45,000 pre-registering for Sunday’s marathon. The actual number of runners was estimated at 36,000 because 10,000 entrants didn’t show up at the starting line.