Boston Marathon and City insist that everyone is welcome, but some runners say politics will keep them at home

Boston, April 19 (AP) The Boston Marathon and Mayor Michelle Wu demanded that international runners and other foreign visitors remain welcome in the city and said there was no evidence that travel for this year’s race fell into the face of a larger border investigation. “Regardless of what’s going on at other levels, and especially now on federal level, in Boston we all welcome,” Wu said on Friday during a media information in Public Safety, not far from the finish line. “We’re trying to be a home for everyone.” The Boston Marathon is the world’s oldest and most prestigious annual long -distance race, a cherished opportunity for runners and spectators, at the state holidays of Patriots’ day to commemorate the battles of Lexington and Concord that provoked the US Revolution 250 years ago. It has accepted a greater meaning and popularity since 2013 when two pressure cooking bombs exploded near the finish line, killed three people and wounded hundreds more. (Allen Davis, the assistant -special agent responsible for the FBI Boston office, said during the briefing that there is “no credible or specific threats” for the Monday’s race.) The marathon of this year has more than 30,000 participants from 128 countries. Jack Fleming, president of the Boston Athletics Association, said the 129th edition of the race was full – thousands more were turned away – and there is no indication that those registered remain at home. “We have a lot of demand this year, as we do every year,” he said. But while US officials are locating the tourism metals, with many visitors who were angry with President Donald Trumps’ rates and rhetoric, and upset about stories about tourists arrested on the border, reports say that at least a few potential marathon participants decided to skip the race. Canadians were particularly off by Trump’s talk about making the country the 51st US state. Paula Roberts Banks, a writer and photographer from Rosseau, Ontario, who has been running 12 times Boston, wrote in the Canadian running magazine that she had earned a prestigious Slab for this year’s race, but decided not to run because she “acquired” on the US. I simply don’t want to go there, ‘she said. “It feels like an outline.” British runner-up Calli Hauger-Thackery, an Olympic 2024 entered into in the female professional field, said she had never experienced a problem, but she was now worried that it could change. “It scares me to travel a little at the moment,” she says, adding that she is married to an American and has a visa. “I hope it’s enough that they don’t flag me or something coming in and out of the states.” Most of the 31.941 participants in Monday’s race had to qualify at another marathon, and many of them considered Boston as a lifelong athletic goal. About 10% of the field typically does not have the starting line -up in Hopkinton for reasons ranging from injuries to the weather to the eruption of a volcano in Iceland that stopped flights and that hundreds of Europeans could travel to Boston. In last year’s field of 29,333 participants, there were 2.838 that could not start. Race officials say they will not know how much no display there is, until Monday; Even then, they will not know why. “We don’t have information about why people may come to Boston or not,” Fleming said. “At the Baa, our goal is to create a marathon experience that is very welcoming and joyful. We focus on the goal every year and we are confident that we have done everything in our power to achieve it this year.” Wu said she hoped that visitors would look past the geopolitical climate and “participate in this very, very important global tradition that should surpass politics and surpass the issues of the day.” And that’s just what Australian Patrick Tiernan plans to do. “There are some unfortunate situations at the moment in the US, but I don’t think it should infect what’s happening here, and the history of this race,” said the two-time Olympian, who was a NCAA land champion in Villanova. “I think everyone is very excited to be here and excited to compete on Monday.” AP SSC SSC first published: 19 Apr 2025, 09:09 AM IST