A surge in numbers

Another BMW Malta Marathon over! That's the first thought that goes through the collective minds of the organising committee, and you'll please excuse us for the hearty sigh of relief. Slowly, we can begin to reassess how it went; the positive and negative, what worked and what can be improved.

The number of competitors are up; we had a combined total of 1,004 finishers in both events, something like a 25 per cent increase on the previous record since we had never exceeded 800 finishers in the past.

We need to sit down and analyse why, and where they came from, so we can better target our marketing for next year. Undoubtedly the introduction of low airfares had a lot to do with it.

They came from everywhere; I remember 19 Japanese runners, one an over-65 female who was running seven marathons on seven continents in seven weeks and chose Malta for her European marathon. I met Americans, runners from South Africa, the UK, Germany, Russia almost all of Europe, Canadians...

With the surge in numbers, I believe it is actually correct to call our race, the biggest little marathon in Europe.

Let me explain how I make that claim: based on the number of runners compared to the population of Malta, 1,000 runners means it had something like the equivalent of 0.0028 per cent of the local population on the move last Sunday.

This looks like a miniscule percentage, but if London was to mobilise the same percentage of runners based on the population of the UK, they would have a field of 168,000 runners in their race.

Of course, they get nothing like that amount (nor would they be able to deal with such numbers). London usually hosts around 30,000 runners, which already makes it one of the largest races in the world.

Looked at in that light, I think we are doing quite well in Malta (and, of course, we want to see the number of competitors grow in next year's race).

We believe it can grow because the comments of the foreigners were mainly very positive, especially our foreign sports travel partners.

Each of them, especially the UK, expressed complete satisfaction with the organisation and the event and promised greater numbers in 2009.

Too, we know that there were approximately 80 Maltese runners less this year than last year (the reason for this is unknown), so we know we can also boost local participation.

Using the Champion Chip system appears to have been a success, although we know that some local runners have still not returned their chip. They are asked to either post it to the MMOC at the address on the website, or hand it in personally to one of the organisers as soon as possible. The committee will be fined e15 for all non-returned chips.

There have been some misunderstandings when calculating age-category awards and these did not appear till the award ceremony. The Italian Champion Chip software company uses a different system to calculate age-groups than that commonly used in Malta of age-on-raceday.

The marathon committee will review all age-category awards in the light of this and will confirm with the IAAF the official way to calculate age-category awards.

We cannot praise too highly the police, traffic wardens and the hundreds of helpers along the route for another tremendous effort in getting so many people safely from Mdina to Sliema.

If you had anything at all to do with the race, in even the smallest way, you have our heartfelt thanks.

If there were any negative comments from any runners, it was mainly concerning traffic pollution along the route, especially around Marsa and Pietà to the finish at the Ferries.

There seems no way to contradict this or even avoid it. We do live in one of the most traffic-dense countries in the world, and (so far) it does not seem possible to make 26 miles of road traffic-free in a country that is really only 21 miles long!

The committee must think some more about this, especially since the race numbers should be larger in future years. We must sit down with the maps and see if we can re-route either parts of the race route, or find alternate ways for the traffic to pass for the five hours of race time.

A final positive comment to close with; the races just got faster.

Kenyan Joshua Kipchumba set a new Malta Marathon record time of 2:18:37, and local hero Jonathan Balzan set a new Maltese national record of 2:26:29.

Our thanks to event sponsor BMW for their tremendous support, and to our Official Partners; MIA, Powerade, San Michel and Urban Jungle.

Our thanks too, to all runners; we hope the thrill of the event and the spectacle was everything you wanted it to be and that the satisfaction you felt on crossing the finish line still lingers.

See you all next year!

johnwalsh42195@yahoo.it