Registration issues for the Bank of America Chicago Marathon have forced the "postponement of online registration" for the "second year in a row," according to Dale Bowman of the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES. Registration was scheduled to start yesterday but was "postponed two weeks until March 19." Race officials said the delay was made in order to "finalize a routine yet comprehensive assessment of our new registration process." The system last year "crashed shortly after the start of registration and race officials were forced to go to a lottery to complete registration." Race officials this year "went to a new system and had a new company handling registration" (CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, 3/6). Chicago Marathon Exec Dir Carey Pinkowski yesterday in an e-mail wrote the postponement "is 100 (percent) precautionary." He later "apologized for the delay," adding that he "understood the problems create negative publicity" for Bank of America. Pinkowski wrote of the registration issues, "This isn't a Bank of America function, this is an event-specific function" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 3/6).
