BOSTON – The Boston Marathon and Mayor Michelle Wu insisted on Friday that international runners and other foreign visitors remain welcome in the city and said there is no evidence that travel for this year’s race has fallen off in the face of increased border scrutiny.
“Regardless of what’s happening at other levels, and particularly now at the federal level, in Boston we welcome everyone,” Wu said at a public safety media briefing not far from the finish line. “We seek to be a home for everyone.”
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A cherished event for runners and spectators alike, staged on the state holiday of Patriots’ Day commemorating the battles of Lexington and Concord that sparked the American Revolution 250 years ago, the Boston Marathon is the world’s oldest and most prestigious annual 26.2-mile race.
It has taken on even greater significance — and popularity — since 2013, when two pressure-cooker bombs exploded near the finish line, killing three people and wounding hundreds more. (Allen Davis, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston office, said at the briefing that there were “no credible or specific threats” to Monday’s race.)
This year’s marathon has more than 30,000 entrants from 128 countries. Boston Athletic Association President Jack Fleming said the 129th edition of the race was full — thousands more are turned away — and there’s been no indication that those registered are staying home.
“We have a lot of demand this year, as we do every year,” he said.
But as U.S. officials track plummeting tourism numbers, with many would-be visitors angered by President Donald Trumps’ tariffs and rhetoric and alarmed by stories about tourists being arrested at the border, reports say at least some potential marathon attendees have decided to skip the race.
Canadians have been especially put off by Trump’s talk of making the country the 51st U.S. state. Paula Roberts-Banks, a writer and photographer from Rosseau, Ontario, who has run Boston 12 times, wrote in Canadian Running magazine that she earned a coveted bib for this year’s race but decided not to run because she has “soured” on the U.S.
“I simply don’t want to go there,” she said. “It feels like a breakup.”
British runner Calli Hauger-Thackery, a 2024 Olympian who is entered in the women’s professional field, said she has never experienced a problem coming to the U.S. but she worries now that that might change.
“It does scare me traveling a little bit, at the moment,” she said, adding that she is married to an American and has a visa. “I hope it’s enough for them to not flag me or anything coming in and out of the States.”
Most of the 31,941 entrants in Monday's race were required to qualify at another marathon, and many of them view running Boston as a lifelong athletic goal. Still, about 10% of the field typically does not toe the starting line in Hopkinton for reasons that range from injuries to weather to the 2010 eruption of a volcano in Iceland that halted flights and prevented hundreds of Europeans from traveling to Boston.
In last year’s field of 29,333 entrants, there were 2,838 who failed to start. Race officials say they will not know how many no-shows there are this year until Monday; even then, they won’t know why.
“We do not have data as to why people may or may not be coming to Boston," Fleming said. "At the BAA, our goal is to create a marathon experience that is very welcoming and joyous. Every year, we focus on that goal and we are confident that we have done everything in our power to achieve that this year.”
Wu said she hoped visitors would look past the geopolitical climate and “participate in this very, very important global tradition that should transcend politics and should transcend the issues of the day.”
And that's just what Australian Patrick Tiernan plans to do.
“There are some unfortunate situations going on in the U.S. right now, but I don’t think that should have to taint what’s happening here, and the history of this race,” said the two-time Olympian, who was an NCAA cross country champion at Villanova. “I think everybody’s very excited to be here and excited to compete on Monday.”
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