With the runners ready but ravaged residents recovering from Sandy, this weekend's New York City Marathon was canceled on Friday when Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed himself and yielded to mounting criticism that this was no time to run a race.

The death toll in the city stood at 41 and thousands of shivering people were without electricity, making many New Yorkers recoil at the idea of assigning police officers to protect a foot race and evicting storm victims from hotels to make way for runners.

Bloomberg, who as late as Friday morning insisted that the world's largest marathon should go on as scheduled on Sunday, changed course hours later after intensifying opposition from the city comptroller, the Manhattan borough president and sanitation workers unhappy they had volunteered to help storm victims but were assigned to the race instead. The mayor said he would not want "a cloud to hang over the race or its participants."

"We cannot allow a controversy over an athletic event - even one as meaningful as this - to distract attention away from all the critically important work that is being done to recover from the storm and get our city back on track," he said.

Around 47,500 runners - 30,000 of them out-of-towners, many from other countries - had been expected to take part in the 26.2-mile event.

(China Daily 11/04/2012 page7)