Coliseum May Lose the Start of L.A. Marathon

The Coliseum, already missing a tenant with the loss of the Raiders to Oakland, will lose another for 1996 if a proposal by the Los Angeles Marathon is passed by the City Council.

Bill Burke, president of L.A. Marathon Inc., said Monday he would ask the council today to move the start of the race on March 3 from its Coliseum home to the Seventh Street Market, at Seventh and Figueroa streets in downtown Los Angeles.

The race would finish at Fifth and Figueroa after being run in a reverse direction to its path of the first 10 years. That would keep the Coliseum on the course, but make it just another landmark, two to three miles into the event.

Loss of revenue to the Coliseum would be minimal--about $15,000, paid by L.A. Marathon Inc., and the state would lose income from some full parking lots on race day.

“I’ve talked to the Downtown Merchants, and they’re real receptive to the idea,” Burke said. “There’s more parking downtown, and there are more ways to get to the starting line than at the Coliseum.”

To help alleviate traffic problems in the staging area, it will be announced at a Thursday news conference in Hollywood that the 1996 Bike Tour, in which cyclists ride the course about two hours before the marathon, will be started in front of Mann’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard and finish at Hollywood and Vine.

The Bike Tour was added last year, when about 12,000 cyclists participated.

The idea of reversing the course, Burke said, is to finish the race with six downhill miles. He is intent on achieving a race record of less than 2 hours 10 minutes, offering elite runners five-figure bonuses to achieve that time.

Rolando Vera won this year’s race in 2:11:39 in the rain. The Los Angeles Marathon record, set in 1988 by Martin Mondragon of Mexico, is 2:10:19.

The course is also being altered slightly in Chinatown, with six to eight of the turns eliminated in response to complaints by some of the neighborhood’s residents and businesses.

“That will also speed things up,” Burke said. “Runners say that every turn in a race costs three to five seconds, so if you take that away from Mondragon’s record, we’re below 2:10.

“I’m going to get that 2:10.”

City Council action is required because the contract between Los Angeles Marathon Inc. and the city gives the council final approval for any change in the race route.

“I don’t think we’re going to have any trouble with that,” Burke said.

Less certain was how it would be received by the Coliseum Commission.

“They don’t care anything about us,” Burke said. “All they care now is about NFL football.”

Not necessarily.

“I’m surprised that Bill Burke would do something like this, considering his wife [County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke] is a Coliseum Commission member,” said Sheldon Sloan, who is also a member. “Also, I wonder how he feels about the impact of the 8,000 families that depend on the Coliseum for part of their income. This is the kind of thing that hurts us from a public relations standpoint at a time when we’re hurting enough.”