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New York City Marathon® Runners Will Take a New Faster Route to Finish Line

NEW YORK - April 10 - In the first significant New York City Marathon course
change in more than 10 years, race director, Allan Steinfeld announced that
the 2001 NYC Marathon race course will no longer enter Central Park at 102nd
Street and 5th Avenue, but instead will continue on the famous 5th Avenue
thoroughfare before going into Central Park at the 90th Street entrance.

The rerouting of the course will eliminate the short, but steep incline into
Central Park at 102nd Street that has tested runners at the 23-mile mark
ever since the famed five-borough marathon course was originally laid out in
1976. This year runners will stay on 5th Avenue for another half-mile and then
enter Central Park at the flat 90th Street entrance. The remainder of the
course to the finish line at Tavern on the Green will remain the same.

"After years of studying ways of making our course even better, while
retaining the basic philosophy of the race, we are very excited about making
this course change. We think it will shave precious seconds off everybody's
time," said Steinfeld. "Everybody from the top runners in the front of the
race to the other 30,000 participants will benefit from this change."

The course change is just one of several new elements being added to the
32nd running of the NYC Marathon on November 4. The NYC Marathon will serve as
the 2001 USA Men's and Women's Marathon Championships, and for the first time
since the inception of the wheelchair division, prize money for the
wheelchair athletes will be awarded. For more race information, go to:
http://www.nycmarathon.org


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Ryan Lamppa, Running USA Media Coordinator
USATF Road Running Information Center
5522 Camino Cerralvo, Santa Barbara, CA 93111
http://www.runningusa.org
http://www.usaldr.org

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