Give us the money and we'll give you the athletes!

Buoyed by the impact of elite athletes on International Race Weekend and a quest to have more of them compete in the event, chairperson of the organising committee and Elite Athlete Liaison Judy Simmons is appealing to corporate Bermuda to increase its sponsorship of the annual meet.

"We would like to have more (elite athletes) because they definitely add to the quality of the race but it's a matter of dollars and cents. It depends on sponsorship," said Simmons.

Noting the all-round benefit is worth the investment, she argued that Bermuda's economy receives a significant boost during Race Weekend.

"The hotels and restaurants are full. Taxis do well, the retail sector has a good time also and our tourist arrivals are up during that week. It's all attributed to International Race Weekend. Everyone knows that.

"So, the more people contribute and help to keep this going at a high level, the more Bermuda will benefit."

Simmons explained that international athletics had changed and that many of the world's top athletes demanded appearance fees to compete at several events. Getting certain athletes would require having the money to pay such fees.

"We normally invite around 30 elite athletes and we try to get the highest calibre athletes we can get who are not going to require appearance fees. We have been very fortunate, because of our connections and the reputation of Race Weekend, to be able to get top athletes here without paying appearance fees but that may not always be the case," she said.

The inclusion of elite runners like former world record-holder in the women's marathon, Tegla Loroupe of Kenya, milers Leonard Mucheru (Kenya), James Thie (Wales) and Christian Hesch (the USA) and 10K and Half Marathon double winner Dmitry Maximov of Russia was well received.

"We had other competitors say to us 'Thanks for bringing in these top-quality runners. You don't know what it does for us. It makes us feel so good to be running alongside a world-class athlete," said Simmons, also president of the Bermuda Track and Field Association.

In addition, many elite athletes are eager to compete here again. They had "nothing but praise for the organisation (of the meet), the friendliness of the people and the variety of races in the Weekend".

Simmons also expressed satisfaction with the number of persons who participated in Race Weekend.

"We were satisfied with the numbers. We were about 200 down from last year which is not bad under the current economic circumstances. You must also note that last year our participation went up about 100 at a time when participation in many events was dropping because of September 11.

"Ours went up then so we are probably seeing the fall-off effect now."

Starting this week, the organising committee will hold post-mortem deliberations at which suggested improvements for next year will be discussed.

"We will look to see the feasibility of any changes we would like to make because we like them to be as seamless as possible and not disrupt the flow of things. We only have a small window of time to do that because our brochures are printed by March for the Boston Marathon in April.

"This year we introduced the showing of slide presentations with music at the awards ceremony so when the winners in the various races were coming up all the relevant pictures of the races were being shown.

"That added to the atmosphere for the awards ceremony and it went very well," said Simmons.