Photo: José Jiménez Paralympic Runner

A total of 522 Costa Rican runners will be competing this Sunday, October 8 at the 40th edition of the Chicago Marathon, a record of registrations for the country.

The official numbers were provided by the United States Embassy in Costa Rica, “The ticos will be one of the biggest representations worldwide and the third in Latin America, after Mexico and Brazil. The Costa Rican delegation is larger than those of Germany, France, Spain and India”, mentions the press release sent by the US Embassy.

For the fifth year in a row Paralympic athlete José Jiménez will be taking part of the event in the wheelchair category. His best mark has been 1:38.47 taking the 14th position and he hopes to do better this year.

The Chicago Marathon is one of the six most important in the world (World Marathon Majors), which include New York, Boston, Berlin, Tokyo and London.

The first race was held on September 25, 1977 under the original name the Mayor Daley Marathon, which drew a field of 4,200 runners, today the competition has a limit of 45,000 runners and over a million spectators; only runners who finish within 6½ hours are officially timed.

Security is a big priority for this edition of the Chicago Marathon in the wake of the mass shooting in Las Vegas.