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Stockholm Marathon ditches plan to give prize money to only Nordic runners
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Organisers of next month’s Stockholm marathon have changed their plan to only give prize money to Nordic runners after accusations of racism.
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The marathon in Sweden’s capital, which expects to draw 20,000 participants, had run into controversy after withdrawing appearance fees and prize money from foreign runners.
Norwegian sports writer Andreas Selliaas called the original decision “as close to racism as it is possible to come”, while Swedish middle-distance runner Rizak Dirshe said it would “kill” the race if a non-Nordic runner should win but only get a medal, while a lower placed finisher would get money.
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The Stockholm marathon – Europe’s fourth largest – has been dominated in the men’s event by east African runners, while the women’s race has been won six out of the last seven years by Kenyan-born Isabellah Andersson, who became a Swedish citizen in 2009. The last time a Nordic athlete won the men’s event was in 2001when Sweden’s Anders Szalkai crossed the finish line first.
The organisers said they would stick with their decision not to offer appearance fees to foreign runners this year. Spokesperson Lorenzo Nesi said it was unlikely that any of the 250,000 SKr (£19,000) prize money, which goes to runners in the top six, would be won by non-Nordic runners as “they won’t travel here if there is a risk they will come in number seven and get no money”.
He added that there had been no criticism from African runners or their managers.
After many years of weak performances in the marathon by Nordic runners, the organisers decided in November to turn this year’s event into a Nordic championship, with prize-money for Scandinavians only in an attempt to boost competitiveness. Foreign runners have been invited, for a fee, every odd year to quicken the pace for local runners.
Anders Albertsson, general secretary of the Swedish Athletic Association, said it was a “wise decision” to lift the restriction on prize money. But he called the accusation of racism “unfair” and said Swedish athletics clubs had been highly successful in integrating runners with non-European heritage into Swedish society.
He welcomed the attempt to boost Nordic performance in the marathon by creating incentives. “If Swedish runners wanted to achieve a personal best performance they shouldn’t choose the Stockholm marathon anyway,” Albertsson said, because there were faster races elsewhere. Top flight marathon runners were not interested in the Swedish event, Nesi said.
Organisers of the Utrecht marathon in the Netherlands came under fire in 2011 after they set up a similar scheme aimed at encouraging domestic runners by awarding much bigger cash prizes than those for foreign nationals.
“Maybe we were naive. The Utrecht marathon did something similar and got a lot of negative reactions,” Nesi said. “I told the organisers this could happen, but we thought we were doing something for Nordic running. We just didn’t think about it.”
Nesi added that the Stockholm event’s senior managers were “hiding” today, and he was “the fan being hit by the shit”.
