INTERNATIONAL BROADCAST SET FOR THE LASALLE BANK CHICAGO MARATHON

October 7, 2002

Chicago (October 6, 2002) The 2002 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon will have the largest broadcast audience in the race's 25-year history. The Marathon will be broadcast internationally to nearly 100 million potential television viewers on Sunday October 13. Chicago's NBC5 and ESPN Radio 1000 will again be joined by TV Tokyo. The British Broadcast Company will televise the race live in Great Britain for the first time ever.

The live broadcasts will require more than 50 cameras on trucks, motorcycles and helicopters along Chicago's fast 26.2 mile course in several neighborhoods and at the Start and Finish Line in Grant Park. NBC5 alone will have nearly 200 on-air and behind the scenes staff involved on race day.

Chicago's NBC5, the proud home of the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon, will begin coverage at 6 a.m. on Race Day with news, traffic and weather updates live from Grant Park. Full coverage will begin at 7:00 a.m. and the Race kicks off at 7:30 a.m. with 37,500 registered runners. The elite field includes the two fastest males and two fastest females competing against each other in the same race for the first time in the history of marathon running.

Darrian Chapman, NBC5's top sports anchor, will host NBC5's race coverage. He will be joined by international marathon experts Tim Hutchings and Toni Reavis. Former U.S. Olympian marathoners and several NBC5's anchors and reporters will again be providing coverage from the neighborhoods, capturing the reactions of the more than 950,000 spectators expected on race day. Along the course, U.S. Olympian marathoners Linda Somers-Smith and Mark Coogan will provide insight from the men's and women's lead vehicles. Runners from 66 countries and all 50 states are participating.

Last year, NBC5's television broadcast ranked #1 throughout its four-hour coverage, averaging a five household Nielsen rating - a total of 400,000 viewers. NBC5's 2001 telecast recently received two Emmy nominations

NBC-owned Spanish language television station Telemundo 44 Chicago will join NBC5 in the Pilsen community (mile 17 of the 26.2 mile course) for live, hourly Spanish language updates broadcast locally on WSNS.

Chicago's ESPN Radio 1000 will have host Dave Juday, veteran marathon expert Creigh Kelly and several reporters along the course in its live broadcast to Chicago's radio audience from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m.

For the second consecutive year TV Tokyo will broadcast the Race live to an enormous Japanese national television audience. The 2002 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon telecast will be live in prime time throughout Japan.

The British Broadcasting Company has committed to a two-and-a-half hour live broadcast of the Race without commercial interruptions from 1:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. in Great Britain. Paula Radcliffe, winner of the 2002 London Marathon in a time only eight seconds behind the world record set last year in Chicago by Catherine Ndereba, is now a enormous sports celebrity in Great Britain. The BBC will be closely following Radcliffe's much anticipated second marathon in Chicago.

Elite athletes will compete for an event record purse of $500,000. The male and female winners each will earn $100,000, the largest ever payout for first place in a marathon. The LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon has always lived up to its reputation as one of the world's fastest courses. Besides Catherine Ndereba's World Record set in 2001, Joan Benoit Samuelson set the woman's American record of 2:21:21 in Chicago in 1985. In its 24-year history Chicago also has owned two men's World Records (1984 Steve Jones ? 2:08:05, 1999 Khalid Khannouchi ? 2:05:42). # # #

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