International Race Weekend has been branded an ?embarrassment? and the ?forgotten marathon? by a sports travel agency who have now cut links with the event after 27 years.

Thom Gilligan, president of Boston-based Marathon Tours, claims to have jetted in nearly 9,000 runners for the January athletics extravaganza over the years but has decided to pull the event from his company?s books due to a ?lack of co-operation, co-ordination, communication or professionalism?.

Gilligan has run the 10K each of the past 27 years while his wife Sharon is a former marathon winner. But such is his anger at both the Bermuda Track and Field Association and the Tourism Department that he is severing all ties with Race Weekend.

?I am fed up with the BTFA and I am fed up with the Bermuda Department of Tourism,? said Gilligan, his voice trembling with rage.

?The lack of co-operation I have received from them is incredible. I have dealt with a lot of marathons all over the world and the communication I have received from Bermuda has been appalling.

?Everyone else plans for these things a year ahead of time but I get contacted in September to look at ways of promoting the event ? but it is too late by then.

?The Walt Disney Marathon (also in January) sold out in July with about 25,000 people running, we could have marketed Bermuda as an alternative for those who couldn?t register for that one.

?They just have no idea what they are doing ? they took out a full page ad in last month?s Runner?s World, but they should have been doing that in April. It is becoming the forgotten marathon ? everyone else is doing it better and people have other options they are taking.?

Gilligan?s other complaint is the lack of financial help from the Tourism Department.

He explained that for other marathons, organisers helped share the advertising and promotion costs while the Race Weekend organisers here refused to do that ? save for a cheque for $1,980.

?I remember that figure well,? he continued.

?Other marathons are happy to help meet the costs of promotion because it benefits their event when large numbers of runners come in, but that is not how they want to operate in Bermuda.

?One year they did help, we signed a contract which meant them contributing $1,980. And it took them two years to pay it and I probably spent half that amount on phone calls trying to get them to pay up.

?They are just not promoting the event as well as they should and they are going to suffer because of that.?

Gilligan was also angry that the International Race Weekend brochure gave the wrong number and address for his company, instead printing one which was five years old.

Last year Gilligan, who has always come down himself to run, brought 300 entrants from Boston, both runner and walkers, and has brought similar numbers for many years.

But this year he decided that due to the lack of communication he ?no longer felt safe offering this through the company? claiming the organisation of the weekend is poor.

In response, Tourism Minister Dr. Ewart Brown yesterday claimed his department?s sales representatives had been in touch with Gilligan?s company continuously since April, even offering him an incentive package as recently as this month ? which Gilligan turned down.

?It is untrue that the Department of Tourism has been unresponsive,? said Brown, who also claimed that the 300 runners brought last year were ?his numbers, his claims, not ours?.

?We keep our records in this department assiduously and we have been in contact with them regularly between April 16 and November 15. We even offered him an incentive package because of our long-standing relationship to encourage him to keep selling our event which he turned down.?

And Brown offered some more sinister reasons for why Gilligan might have hit out in the way he has.

?There is some tension between Mr. Gilligan and the BTFA, although you will have to speak to them for more details,? he continued.

?He apparently asked to be made the exclusive agency selling the event, something the BTFA wasn?t interested in. We can?t favour his company at the expense of all our other partners.?

Judith Simmons, president of the BTFA, was unavailable for comment yesterday.

Gilligan?s frustrations with International Race Weekend date back to last year when he was left furious after the event was cancelled and the first he heard of it was through a phone call from despite being one of the more prominent promoters of the races.

Even though it was saved ? after Sports Minister Dale Butler famously called the BTFA ?sports terrorists? ? Gilligan was also quick to admonish the organisers for the manner of the marathon finish last year, when mis-placed national coach Gerry Swan blocked signage on the final straight and caused Kenyan Simon Sawe to take a few steps in the wrong direction which gave victory to Moroccan Al Afoui Boubker.

After an anxious few hours for Sawe, the event was ruled a tie ? adding grist to Gilligan?s mill of frustration.

?Well that was just a joke,? continued Gilligan, who has also run three half-marathons and a marathon here over the years.

?It?s an embarrassment really. These people probably only thought for ten seconds how to put up a finish line area.

?Surely it?s not beyond the realms of possibility that there could be a sprint finish whether for first place of 100th place. It is a wonder no one has been hurt with the way it?s set up.

?If they want to do to their marathon properly they need to think about hiring a full-time professional race director, even if it is someone based in the States or Canada ? that is the only they are going to compete.?

Although his company are not promoting Race Weekend, individuals have been booked for January?s event. But they will not receive any of the usual personal touches that his company pride themselves on.

Gilligan believed his company would now be sending no more than 25 compared to the usual 300.

?It upsets me, it really does,? he continued.

?I love Bermuda and I have some fantastic memories of the place, not the least of which was meeting my wife there.

?I really wanted to keep up the 27-year relationship but it is just not viable for us anymore. It is a shame the event has deteriorated the way it has ? it is becoming the forgotten marathon.?