|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ING NEW YORK CITY MARATHONNovember 1, 2012Stephanie AbramsJoe BastianichGeorge HirschTanya MarchiolBrian SearsPaul SparksJustin YoungNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK RICHARD FINN: Welcome, everybody, to the Times Media Center and the ING New York City Marathon. We have a distinguished, and if I might say, famous group of participants here, and to open this brief program, it's my pleasure to turn it over to the chairman of the board, New York Road Runners and also a fairly good runner, George Hirsch. George? GEORGE HIRSCH: Good afternoon. First I want to welcome all of our celebrated athletes here. Thank you for joining us in what I think is going to be a significant and historic marathon for New York. And on that, I would just like to say a couple of things on behalf of our organization. Our team recognizes that this is an extraordinarily difficult time for the city. This city has been clobbered but it hasn't been crippled. And this race is going to be very important. As you all know from the media today, there's some controversy, and I respect the opinions on all sides as to the city's decision should the race go on, should the race be canceled. And I speak to you as a New Yorker who was born less than a mile from here, as a founder of this race, as someone who's run it a number of times and is the chairman of the board. I think there is an extraordinary moment. I believe that because of this team that we have and the incredible support from the City of New York that on Sunday afternoon, New Yorkers are going to look at this, and there will have been no controversy. This would have been a controversial decision either way, if the city had said cancel the marathon, you'd be hearing a lot, as well. But I think by Sunday afternoon, this race will be known as the race for recovery. This is a real chance. The city of New York is not going to give up. The city of New York is coming back, and this race will demonstrate that resilience, and this will be the race for recovery. I just want to congratulate all of you. You are distinguished people and true celebrated people in our world, make us proud on Sunday. Thank you. RICHARD FINN: So now it is my pleasure to do a little ceremonial official welcome to this distinguished group of athletes, ladies and gentlemen, and official welcome to the 2012 ING New York City Marathon. I'm going to start here, Stephanie Abrams, talent and announcer for The Weather Channel. As you all know, last year the ING New York City Marathon helped raise $34 million in charity for groups small and large, both here in the tri‑state area and across the country.  Stephanie is running in support of the National Alliance of Mental Illness, and behalf of us at New York Road Runners we wish her luck, and we'd like to also present her with her ceremonial running bib. STEPHANIE ABRAMS: Thank you very much. RICHARD FINN: Next to Stephanie is Joe Bastianich, who's a well known restauranteur and master chef who is also a New York City Marathon veteran. How many times have you run, Joe? JOE BASTIANICH: Five. RICHARD FINN: And your best time, Joe? JOE BASTIANICH: 3:40‑something. RICHARD FINN: Is everybody going to your restaurant on Saturday night for‑‑ JOE BASTIANICH: Assuming they'll be open, we will. RICHARD FINN: Let's hope so. Again, on behalf of all of us, I'd like to welcome back Joe to the ING New York City Marathon. The next guest, as a sports writer from years past, I happen to be in that building that day in 1994, and I think was thrilled by that event, I think it was that spring of 1994. It's my pleasure to welcome Nick Kypreos from the 1994 New York Rangers Stanley Cup Rangers team. Nick is joining a distinguished list of teammates, and there must be something about that team, who will have run here in New York, including Adam Graves, Mike Richter, and I'm sure he's taken a lot of kidding from his captain, Mark Messier, who ran last year. Rick is a current hockey analyst, so he's not talking a lot about hockey right now unfortunately, up at Canada's Sports Net, and we welcome Nick to this race. Next to Nick is Tanya Marchiol. She's a television talent, real estate expert, commonly seen on HGTV. Tanya, again, one of the things that really makes this race special are all the people, all the runners or so many of the runners who are running on behalf of something of a cause. Not only are they going to have a great day out there, but they're doing something so special for another cause. Again, Tanya will be running on behalf of the North Shore Animal League, and we welcome Tanya. Will this be your first? TANYA MARCHIOL: It's my third. RICHARD FINN: Right in the middle is a very special guest of ours, J.R. Martinez, who's a U.S. Army veteran, and that is just probably all you need to know about us tipping our hat and saluting J.R. for what he's done for the service of this country. But he also I guess is pretty good on his feet. He's a former winner of the Dancing With the Stars, and that's quite a feat. You'll have to tell us after the race whether Dancing With the Stars was harder or running the marathon. But J.R. is running on behalf of one of our sponsors, Timex GPS this year, and we're making it a little bit more difficult for J.R. this year as we have done for all the other members of the Timex group. J.R. will be running and will be the very last person to cross‑‑ not the finish line we hope, but the starting line. And for every person that J.R. passes, he will be raising $1 for our New York Road Runners youth programs. So that is such a special place that we have for J.R. We have here two actors from the hit Broadway show Book of Mormon, and both gentlemen are running for, again, a cause, and that is‑‑ again, if I had a hat I would take it off and salute you, Brian Sears, actor in Broadway Book of Mormon, and Brian's costar in the Book of Mormon Rick Spangler. They will both be running for Broadway Impact. Is there a little individual race going on here? BRIAN SEARS: He's going to kick my butt. RICHARD FINN: Staying in the world of drama and Hollywood, the gentleman to their left, Paul Sparks is an actor in the hit series on I think it's HBO Boardwalk Empire. Luckily that story is taking place here. He's a New York City Marathon veteran. How many times have you run, Paul? PAUL SPARKS: Once. RICHARD FINN: I continue to be a broken record, but I cannot emphasize more what it means to us at New York Road Runners when people like this take the time out of busy schedules with so many other runners to do something good. Paul will be running on behalf of the juvenile diabetes research fund, and again, that makes Paul a winner even before he steps to the start line. So thank you, Paul. I guess we're staying in the world of entertainment. To Paul's left, Greg T is a radio personality on I guess the morning show zoo Elvis Duran and the Morning Show, so I'm sure many of you have probably woken up to hear Greg and his cohost on the show. Greg is running to support the charity Rosie's Theater Kids. Again, you can't go wrong with kids unless you're acting across from them and they're stealing the show from you.  But Greg, we thank you, and we welcome you to this year's marathon. To Greg's left is Whitney Phelps. Again, running on behalf of one of our sponsors and our partners here at the ING New York City Marathon. She's running on behalf of Team Subway and will be joined here through the weekend and hopefully on race day by the support team of her mom Debbie, who I believe is here, and also sister Hillary, also in a Subway shirt. Whitney and Hillary, you're not running against each other yet? Next year? We are looking forward to welcoming back a marathon veteran and Subway teammate, who was scheduled to run the dash, but as many of you know, we have‑‑ there's Jared, but he doesn't have a Subway shirt. Somebody is missing their job out there. As you know, we have canceled both the dash on Saturday and also the parade of nations so that we can focus all of our resources and energies on being prepared for Sunday's race. Again, my pleasure is to welcome you, Whitney, to this year's race. We have Justin Young here with us, reality show contest on Amazing Race this year. JUSTIN YOUNG: It was last year, Season 19. RICHARD FINN: So you did a little bit of running? JUSTIN YOUNG: A little bit of running, a little bit of puzzles, a little bit of sleeping on planes, that sort of thing. RICHARD FINN: Well, no sleeping on Sunday, and please remember we turn the clocks back on Saturday night, so we do get an extra hour. Again, like so many of the runners here and more than 8,000 runners that we expect to be running for charity and for a cause on Sunday, Justin is running on behalf of the Team Grass‑Roots Soccer, and that deserves our respect and admiration right now and today. We're going to group all of our guests together for a photo shoot and then we will have all of them here scattered around the room for one‑on‑ones. Again, we thank everybody for coming, and we wish everybody good luck. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|