Gold Coast Marathon 2019: Flashback to 2009’s Gold Coast Marathon

Another record-breaking crowd forced a rethink into the staging of the rapidly expanding Gold Coast Marathon - including capping numbers at the event.

Gold Coast Bulletin, Monday July 6, 2009

ANOTHER record-breaking crowd forced a rethink into the staging of the rapidly expanding Gold Coast Airport Marathon - including capping numbers at the event.

2008’s previous record of 21,000 entrants was smashed when 23,398 fronted up to race in the marathon, half-marathon, 10km run, Gold Coast Bulletin 5km challenge and the 4km and 2.25km junior dashes.

It was the most popular marathon in Australia, but the growing pains were starting to show.

It took 14 minutes for the tail end of the 7663 half-marathon competitors to cross the start line - Premier Anna Bligh was stuck in the middle of the pack, taking six minutes to get through the crowd to officially start her race.

Gold Coast Bulletin, Monday July 6, 2009

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The start of the 42km marathon was not much better, with the leaders crossing the Sundale Bridge before all of the 4106 competitors could get across the start line.

Kenyan William Chebon Chebor won the Gold Coast Airport Marathon while West Australian Lauren Shellby won in the women’s field.

Dickson Marwa and Victorian Lisa Jane Weightman won the half-marathon while Lee Troop smashed his 10km competitors with female winner Clare Geraghty.

Queensland Events said the festival’s popularity was growing so rapidly it now needed to consider a new structure which could mean capping the number of entries in certain events, running it over two days, having multiple finish lines for different races or restructuring the start times.

The options have sparked concerns the family event could become the target of only elite runners.

Queensland Events Gold Coast chairman Kerry Watson said the popularity of the event was surpassing estimations.