Inside record breaking Gold Coast marathon numbers and future expansion plans revealed

Gold Coast marathon has set an amazing new mark for runners and revealed plans for future expansions. Find out more.

One of the smallest runners has made the biggest difference ahead of the Gold Coast Marathon.

Seven-year-old Coombabah boy Dave Yeung Lam became the record-breaking 30,000th entrant when he signed up for the 2km Junior Dash.

Tsun (Dave) Yeung Lam, the 30,000th entrant of the 2024 Gold Coast Marathon. Picture: Supplied

Dave’s father Marco Yeung Lam said he and his son would be joining his cousins who had flown over from Hong Kong just to race.

“They have come over here especially for running. (Dave and I) can join together it’s a very spectacular case … it’s like a golden opportunity,” he said.

“After I received the call (to say Dave was the record-breaking entrant) I still felt like it wasn’t true.

“He’s just seven years old but I think he will be learning a lot from this event.”

Dave won a prize pack including an ASICS voucher, Dreamworld passes and Gold Coast Marathon merchandise for being the 30,000th entrant.

He said it was his first time running 2km but he was more excited than nervous.

“I was super surprised — I’m excited about the four passes to Dreamworld,” he said.

The Junior Dash is held on Saturday from 9.40am.

Events Management Queensland CEO Ben Mannion celebrates 30 000 competitors at this years Gold Coast Marathon. Picture Glenn Hampson

Gold Coast Marathon history has been made with a record 30,000 entrants ready to line up for this year’s event.

Events Management Queensland (EMQ) chairman, Paul Donovan said the previous record of 28,199 for the two-day extravaganza had been eclipsed with another 13,000 people still on the waitlist for the 44th annual event.

Mr Donovan confirmed there was yet again a large contingent of international and interstate runners making the journey to the Coast for the marathon.

“Out of the 30,000 we have 2800 internationals and for the first time we have 429 coming from Indonesia, 250 coming from China, 421 from New Zealand, he said.

“It’s an event that showcases athleticism for the elites but also gets the young people motivated into sport, to movement and that’s why we want this to be seen as a really great community event.

“This event is all about the community and this is something that out great mayor has pushed along and we want the community involved.”

Events Management Queensland CEO Ben Mannion said just over 50 per cent of people participating are from outside Queensland, showing the event’s expansion potential.

“We need to sit down and see if we can open it up to potentially other parts of the Gold Coast but what we’re looking at is there are certain crossovers on this course where people are going northbound and southbound,” he said.

“If we can get to the point where we can have a looped course, it might be other parts of the Gold Coast highway, we can really open it up to anything. It could be one of the biggest events in the world.”

Mr Donovan added: “The management team have been asked to look at how we can satisfy the initial 13,000, so going forward that’s what we’re asking the management, just what can we do.”

Events Management Queensland (EMQ) Chairman, Paul Donovan, Mayor Tom Tate, EMQ CEO Ben Mannion, and Local run coach Adam Gordon celebrate the 30000th competitor for the 2024 Gold Coast Marathon. Picture Glenn Hampson

Mayor Tom Tate said the record numbers added great economic value to the Gold Coast and he spoke of future plans for the marathon.

“Last year was around $37 million benefit to the city, but more than that what I love about Gold Coast Marathon [is] the fact is there’s so many different categories,” Mr Tate said.

“[There’s] something for everyone, if you’re not going run a full marathon, run a half, do a 10km, so a 5km... there’s wheelchair as well so we leave no one behind.

“If you have the planning to include more support areas that means you can get people to keep running through easier, less U-turns, those sort of things to make it so even more people to run.

“We’re open to, if we can get more people in safely, from a council point of view if it means more infrastructure needed, we will.”

The Asics Gold Coast Marathon will take this place this weekend with 8 events spanning across Saturday and Sunday.

Originally published as Inside record breaking Gold Coast marathon numbers and future expansion plans revealed