 It was not until the health consciousness of the 1960s that marathon growth gained traction in the eyes of the nation . Frank Shorter 's 1972 Games of the XX Olympiad marathon victory represented the convergence of many middle @-@ class American ideals . Then the 1976 New York City Marathon , which was the first New York City Marathon to embrace the five borough course , popularized the big city marathon . As the New York marathon began to grow exponentially in the 1970s , the Chicago Marathon was established as a rival to the New York City Marathon . By the mid @-@ 1980s , the Chicago Marathon was ensconced as one of the big four marathons . During the mid @-@ 1980s , it was named America 's Marathon / Chicago and opened up the way for appearance payments . Joan Benoit Samuelson described the Chicago Marathon 's of the mid @-@ 1980s as " The World 's Marathon " . The Bank of America Chicago Marathon is an open race with no qualifying time to participate . 
