Male winner: George Parker; 2:38:14
Female winner: Lorraine Lees-McGough; 3:15:52
The Saskatchewan Marathon has had a few names in its 30 year history. From 1988 to 1991, the event was known as the Canada Goose Marathon. The 1988 race director, Ray Risling, had a desire to promote the growth of the event and thought that enticing Americans to visit was one way to do it. As a “marketing tool”, Ray suggested the name :”Saskatchewan Canada Goose Marathon”, thinking that his American goose hunter friends might come for a visit and run too. Ray would tell his friends that on many of his training runs along the South Saskatchewan River, dozens of Canada Geese would keep him company and the air was thick with them, in the fall, at the time of the Marathon. The name stuck through 1991. The event became known as the Saskatchewan Star Phoenix Marathon in 1992 and kept that name until 1998, when the local daily paper was the title sponsor. After that year, it became known as the Saskatchewan International Marathon.
The “International” part of the name was dropped in 2005 and the event has been known as the “Saskatchewan Marathon” since.
The number of entrants was increasing as the years went by. This year, there were 94 participants registered for the marathon and a total of 304 for the three events (10Km, half-marathon and marathon) combined. In this year, marathon runners started at 21st Street and 3rd Avenue in downtown Saskatoon. The half-marathon and 10Km events started at a slightly different location: 19th Street and 3rd Avenue. The marathon completed two out and back northbound/southbound loops along Spadina Crescent.
In the other events, the 10Km event was won by Nick Hanna in 32:44 and Geanne Parker in 39:13. The wheelchair half-marathon champs were Shawn Konowski (1:19:44) and Colette Bourgonje (1:20:24). Jim Jasieniuk (1:09:45) and Lee Ann Forsyth (1:29:47) won the half-marathon. In his first recorded appearance in the Saskatchewan Marathon, eventual three-time marathoner winner (1992, 2000 and 2007), Brian Michasiw finished the half-marathon in 1:16:55.
partly cloudy
9am wind: north 17Kmh, 7am: 7 °C, 11am: 10 °C
1988 Start
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