By Luke Costin in Sydney

A national running legend doubts Australia fully grasps the importance of its largest marathon joining New York and London in a prized global club of distance races.

The Sydney Marathon was confirmed as the seventh member of the Abbott World Marathon Majors on Monday, culminating a three-year program to improve the status of the event.

It joins Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York as a major, drawing the world’s fastest and bringing focus to local, elite long-distance runners.

But it’s the impact on the recreational scene that has most excited organisers and Australian distance-running great Steve Moneghetti.

“People internationally will want to come to Sydney as a running tourism destination,” Moneghetti told AAP from the sidelines of the New York race.

“I was up at four (am) this morning, runners were going out to the start and they’re still coming across the finish line 12 hours later.”

Moneghetti won Tokyo and Berlin’s marathons, notched top-fives in London and the 1988 Olympics and has held the course record for Sydney’s other great run – the City2Surf – for three decades.

He hoped the city would fully embrace its membership in the “illustrious” club, as New York did.

“You would not believe the atmosphere – it’s five-deep out on the course, the whole journey,” he said.

“Like New York, (Sydney) might not be the fastest course in the world, but it will be the best experience – Aussie hospitality, the course finishing at the Opera House, going across the Sydney Harbor Bridge, the parklands through Centennial Park,” Moneghetti said.

“Hopefully, we can build that momentum to get great support out on the course and people will really know that Sydney is a wonderful place to come to run a marathon.”

NSW’s tourism body hopes so too, estimating the value of Sydney’s elevation to distance running’s top-tier at $73 million over the next three years.

More than 25,000 runners took part in September and that number is expected to grow to 37,000 by 2027.

Part of that is by drawing in some of the pent-up demand for Sydney’s closest Abbott-level neighbour, the Tokyo Marathon, which is oversubscribed by about 500,000 applicants annually.

Organisers anticipate an entry ballot will have to be introduced with contingencies to support local runners and those who helped take it to new heights.

“A lot of the runners that have run in the last two years, they will be guaranteed a spot in the next three years,” race operations director Simon Bryan said.

“The ballot has to be introduced with the (increase in) demand.”

The Sydney Marathon is a legacy of the 2000 Olympics and was first held as a test event five months out from the Games.

After 1200 took part in that first long lap of the city, the event grew slowly over the following decades to about 5000 participants in a wider festival of mixed distances.

But the marathon has been turned on its head since it became a candidate to join the Abbott majors in 2022.

The popular half marathon was ditched, the course was revamped to take out low-speed turns and incentives were rolled out to encourage higher race numbers.

The finish was made many times more spectacular, shifting to the Sydney Opera House forecourt.

That ensured it bolted past the record for Australia’s largest marathon, set by 8100 runners in Melbourne in 2019.

“We’re incredibly proud of the journey this race has been on and we are beyond excited for what this means for the future of the sport in Australia,” Athletics Australia president Jane Fleming said.

The six majors are estimated to generate US$1 billion in economic activity collectively.