Columnist Dean Juipe: Marathon belongs on the Strip

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2002 | 10:14 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

Al Boka usually stays in close contact, periodically providing updates on his favorite topic.

He's the organizer of the Las Vegas Marathon and a man driven to make the annual event the worldwide attraction it should rightfully be.

What we have in common is a belief that city council members in Las Vegas and commissioners in Clark County should step forward and embrace the marathon by allowing it to be run down Las Vegas Blvd. It would be scenic, picturesque, exciting and -- by virtue of the exposure it would receive -- it would serve as a tourist draw not only on race day but throughout the year.

There have been times Boka believed he was making progress toward this goal. However slight the inroad or speculative the advance, he has enjoyed sharing the information and his calls were welcomed by someone who feels both Boka and the marathon have never received their just due.

But a year has passed since I last saw or talked to Boka and it leaves the impression that perhaps he has given up. Well, not given up per se, but, perhaps, resigned himself and his race to a niche that is at least a level or two beneath where it truly belongs.

Sunday will be a busy sports day with the St. Louis vs. New England Super Bowl in New Orleans and UNLV hosting DePaul in men's basketball. But it will also be the day on which this city's most underrated and underappreciated annual event will be held -- the Las Vegas Marathon.

This will be the 36th installment of a race that annually draws participants from all 50 states and, this year, 32 countries. With a heavy dose of runners from Europe and Asia -- and with runners and their families known to be better than average when it comes to disposable income -- the marathon generates global exposure and provides an immediate economic boost to the city.

If only the city treated the runners as well.

What it ought to do is obvious: Keep the finish line in Sunset Park but allow the race, which presently starts in the remote burg of Jean, to more or less be run the length of the Strip.

Instead of plodding into town on an old and obscure highway that by its very nature is devoid of color and fanfare, runners participating in a race held on the Strip would be jazzed beyond belief and would attract a legion of both devoted and curious spectators. From a visual perspective, it would be breathtaking.

And it's doable. Closing off the Strip for a single morning once a year would neither inconvenience nor offend the general public. We adjusted to downtown's Freemont Street being halved on a permanent basis and we can adjust as a populace to a single street being closed once a year, especially when the trade-off is a glorious event with international appeal.

I've written about this so many times that there's a tendency to see it as a dead horse. But it's not -- it's just going to take the right group of elected, and eclectic, public officials to push it to fruition.

Boka may have grown weary of the misreads and false hopes, but, if so, I can only remind him to equate his cause with the type of race he so admires.

It's a marathon, and sometimes getting people to come to their senses takes what seems to be an insufferable length of time.