Toronto Will Keep Both of its Marathons

From the Toronto Globe and Mail, all the more reason to visit Toronto more often.

A race divided: Toronto will keep both its marathons

GoodLife event to be held in May

KELLY GRANT

From Saturday's Globe and Mail Published on Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010 12:00AM EST Last updated on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010 3:44AM EST

CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF

The race is over, and it's a tie.

Toronto's competing marathons have reached a compromise that will see one stay in the fall and the other move to the spring.

The agreement neutralizes city hall's threat to pit the marathon organizations against each other - and outside race groups - for the right to host Toronto's only marathon.

"Faced with impending doom, sanity prevailed," said Alan Brookes, race director for the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon, which remains in the autumn. "The arrangement that has been reached will be a win-win-win for everybody."

The GoodLife Fitness Toronto Marathon will move to May, beginning in 2011. This year's races will remain on their regularly scheduled fall dates.

Jay Glassman, race director for the GoodLife event, initially balked at moving to the spring. His event has been around longer, and he felt the waterfront organizers were unfairly muscling his run out of the more popular fall season.

But Mr. Glassman said yesterday that the prospect of losing the marathon bidding war prompted him to reconsider.

"You never know 100 per cent who will win. It's trial by jury," he said. "So that was part of it."

The city's offer to help build both races into major stops on the international marathon circuit also swayed him, Mr. Glassman said.

Staff from the city's economic development department have been talking in earnest with both race organizations since the public works committee granted the parties a two-week extension to find a compromise.

They signed a memorandum of understanding late Wednesday, the broad outlines of which go to council Monday.

City officials initially waded into the marathon issue to lessen traffic headaches. Major road closings three weeks apart frustrated motorists. The city grants permits to close the roads.

It's too early to say whether both races will maintain their current routes.

The GoodLife course starts in North York, runs south along Yonge to the Martin Goodman Trail and loops back to Queen's Park. The waterfront course starts at Nathan Phillips Square, proceeds down to Lake Shore Boulevard, runs west to Windermere Avenue and heads east along Queen back to City Hall.

In the course of trying to solve the traffic dilemma, the city came to realize that bigger, better marathons could be a boon to Toronto's reputation and its tourism industry, said Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker, chairman of the public works committee.

Mr. De Baeremaeker said he would love to attract more than 20,000 marathoners to each race so they might rival marathons in Boston or Chicago.

"We think both races could be huge," he said.