New York City Marathon is Cancelled

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has cancelled the running of the New York City Marathon, scheduled for Sunday through the five boroughs of New York.

The city and region is still struggling to recover from hurricane Sandy.  The mayor and New York Road Runners Club had hoped that running the event would bring people together in the wake of the devastating storm.

The marathon is one of  the largest in the world with over 40,000 runners, and it's economic impact on the city is significant.

The decision to hold the event when so many people are still struggling to recover from the storm brought a firestorm of controversy to the mayor and race officials.

Bloomberg stated, "We would not want a cloud to hang over the race and it's participants, so we have decided to cancel it.  We cannot allow a controversy over an athletic event--even one as meaningful as this, to distract attention from all the critically important work that is being done to recover from the storm and get our city back on track."

No word on whether the race will be re-scheduled or completely cancelled.  Many runners were/are in transit from all over the country and all over the world to come to New York.

Details on how this situation will be handled should be announced on the race web site soon:  www.nycmarathon.org