TCS NYC MARATHON

November 3, 2024

Ted Metellus

Dawna Stone

Wayne Larden

Sally Loane

Press Conference

TED METELLUS: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to New York. Welcome to our media center here for the TCS New York City Marathon, our 2024 event here. It's been an amazing day of running. We still have many athletes out there running, but it's been a glorious day of great energy across the board.

I'll make this quick, as we have a packed program with some amazing speakers and presenters.

I think the highlight of my day wasn't with our elite athletes, wasn't catching some of the folks that are out there, it wasn't even starting this race. I think my best moment so far is hanging out at the finish line and watching as all the runners come over and with this gleaming excitement and smile and say this has been the greatest day ever, followed by, I saw you in Chicago, I saw you in Boston, I saw you in London, I saw you in Tokyo.

Thank you for being here.

This is the energy that we bring here and it's an honor to be a part of the Abbott World Marathon Majors. We have gone from a local community of runners to a national community of runners to a global community of runners.

It is my pleasure to bring to the podium here a person that's responsible for this global party that we have going on here with the majors, our CEO, Dawna Stone.

DAWNA STONE: Thank you, Ted. Really appreciate it. I never like going after Ted. He's just fabulous.

I'm so excited to be here today. This is a long time coming. In 2017 Abbott World Marathon Majors began a search for three new races in new territories to serve our goal of making the series truly global, and one that inspired the whole world through the power of the marathon.

On July 27, 2022, the Sydney Marathon became a candidate in that search. Our team of evaluators began working with the Sydney staff to assess the race and provide valuable feedback on what was needed to raise the event to Abbott World Marathon Major standards. The long and difficult journey was underway.

Much like the marathon itself, there are hard times and moments where you doubt if you will reach the finish line. To succeed, you need perseverance, dedication, and the vision to keep that goal in sight.

Sydney took the learnings from the assessment process and transformed the race to one that deserves to be a major. Today, exactly 831 days from those first steps in the candidacy process, Sydney has arrived.

It gives me great pleasure to announce that the 2025 TCS Sydney Marathon presented by Asics will be the seventh Abbott World Marathon Major.

I'd love you all to watch a short video right here.

(Video shown.)

On behalf of my team, all our race directors, our incredible title sponsor Abbott, and our entire community of runners, I'd like to extend a huge congratulations to race director Wayne Larden, your whole Sydney team, to Destination New South Wales, and the New South Wales government for daring to dream and for working tirelessly to make that dream a reality. You have earned your star. Congratulations on joining the Abbott World Marathon Majors family.

I'd like to now invite Wayne to say a few words as the newly inducted seventh race director of the World Marathon Majors. Wayne?

WAYNE LARDEN: Thank you. Thank you, Dawna, and what a relief I can put this hat on now. No. 7.

Thank you, Dawna. Ted, thank you for hosting us at this ceremony here as part of your great event, and what an event. Thanks for leading me sit in the lead car, too. Always a pleasure.

Today of course is a historic day, a major milestone for the TCS Sydney Marathon presented by Asics for Sydney, for New South Wales and the whole of Australia.

We're just so proud and honored to be standing here joining the six greatest marathons in the world, joining the greatest marathon series in the world, the Abbott World Marathon Majors, and I can tell you our team, the Pont3 team, our partners, New South Wales government, TCS and Asics, and me personally, couldn't be happier. It's a real honor that we're all super proud of.

In 2022 when we signed this agreement, we had 5,000 runners in the marathon, and I can tell you honestly, most of the marathon running community and running community generally in Australia thought we had no chance, that we had no chance of meeting especially that criteria point.

I always believed we would, but I knew it would take a lot of hard work, good partnerships with government, the New South Wales government, funded the candidacy, supported us with strategic advice. TCS worked really closely with us, used the experience they have with London and New York to help us on our journey, and of course Asics have been there for a long time, as well.

I feel really good that we've just been announced No. 7 and proved the rest of the Australian running community wrong. That's sort of nice.

But the inroads we've made in the last couple of years and the growth not only in the numbers but the overall delivery of the event, the quality of the delivery, the course, the medical services, everything that we did pretty well we learned from you guys and the feedback from the assessment team, and we listened carefully.

You guys will have seen when you came to the race that everything you guys told us throughout the assessment period and the assessors we implemented, and that's why we're successful, because we've taken this commitment and partnership very seriously. The team, the Abbott team, the Abbott World Majors team have been so generous in their advice, always helpful if I ring Ted or I ring Hugh or anyone, you always give me advice straight away and you always wanted to help. We're really proud and honored to be here with that.

I've covered most of my stuff.

Thank you all. I want to look ahead to 2025. We are having a new date next year, moving us away from that spring period of marathons to 31 August, which is great. Give us a little break between us and Chicago and Berlin and New York City, so everyone can focus on Sydney in our first year as a major.

We want to have 35,000 runners on the start line next year so a bit of a jump from this year, which is great, so we're just really excited to deliver next year's event as the seventh Abbott World Major, and again, thanks to my Pont3 team who are all here. Couldn't have done it without you guys. Well done.

That's all. Thank you.

SALLY LOANE: I'm the only one not in a track suit, so I'm clearly not one of the athletic elite on stage. My name is Sally Loane. I'm chair of Destination New South Wales, which is our New South Wales government's leading tourism and visitor economy agency, and I am so thrilled to be here in New York for the marathon on the day that Sydney becomes the seventh of the Abbott World Marathon Majors.

The Sydney Marathon, for those of you who know Sydney, it's the only remaining legacy of the event of the 2006 Sydney Olympics recognized as one of the world's great marathons.

I'm really pleased to say that one of the keen runners we had in the Sydney Marathon this year was our very own minister for tourism, the Honorable John Graham, who finished in a very reputable time. Now, when your minister runs a marathon, that is deep engagement at a really physical level. It's brilliant.

Just a little bit about Sydney people. We love to run. We love fun runs. We love marathons. We love jogging. We're a first-light city. That means the sun comes up over Sydney one of the first cities in the world. New Zealand just beats us. But Sydney is a first-light city. We get up early. We exercise. We jog. We do yoga on Bondi Beach. We are going to embrace this marathon like nothing else. We will get those crowds, I'm quite sure, Wayne, within a very short period of time. I can't wait.

Now, the New South Wales government through Destination New South Wales which I chair is very, very proud to support the TCS Sydney Marathon's candidacy to become the seventh Abbott World Marathon Major. It's a brilliant community event, as we all know, and it's going to be great for tourism in our country, as well.

We are a long way away from the rest of the world, but I know so many people are going to be coming to Sydney and New South Wales to run, to bring their families. I think we're in a really good time of the year where it's sort of school holidays in a lot of the northern hemisphere, so it's going to be really fantastic. If you're thinking of coming, don't just stay for a couple of days. You need to stay at least a week and enjoy what Sydney has to offer, and of course the great state of New South Wales.

I'd like to congratulate, as Wayne did, the team at Pont3 for all their hard work, the team at Destination New South Wales back home in Sydney. I think they're getting up around about now. There's going to be a celebration down at the opera house as we speak, and I know everybody has worked incredibly hard to get this over the line, so well done to everybody. This is a remarkable achievement for Sydney. It's among the most remarkable achievements in our city's illustrious sporting history and will pay significant dividends for the New South Wales visitor economy.

We look forward to welcoming runners from New York and all over the world to our beautiful harbor city for an incredible marathon event next year. Please come to Sydney. Thank you.