Based on that information, Chicago will be up approximately 4,000 from last year, when 29,256 signed up. There was no early cutoff last year, and almost 4,000 runners registered on race weekend. What no one knows is if the early cutoff helped or hurt. Did it spark more registration than usual for three weeks before the race, or did it prevent the race from reaching its goal of 35,000 runners. Some interesting numbers from other leading marathons around the world show Chicago could be close to being the biggest outside of the 1996 Boston Marathon.
Size is judged by the number of finishers.
The 1996 Boston race had 35,868 finishers in its centennial year. After that, New York had 31,786 in 1999, London had 31,648 in 2000, Paris had 27,596 in 2000. Last year, Chicago had 24,654 finishers. Meanwhile, one of the new runners for 2000 appears to be South African Elana Meyer. She is all but signed, sealed and delivered according to sources.