CAMBRIDGE, Md. - Athletes from all around the world are descending on the Mid-shore this weekend.
The Iron Man competition will be taking place in Cambridge once again. City leaders say they're expecting the event to bring in millions of dollars. Ward 1 commissioner Laurel Atkiss says, "You know you can look at this weekend as a real boost at what is generally the end of the season. The summer tourism is dwindling and the temperatures are cooling so it's nice to see an influx of people coming to town."
Businesses like Ava's Pizzeria say this doubles their daily profits.
General manager William Fleming says, "I have family members right now going out on vacations. They're getting extra money doing Air B&B's at their houses. For us, the turnout is incomparable to any event we do out of the entire year."
With most Iron Man athletes, getting a tattoo of the symbol is a sign of completion. So Choptank Tattoo, the new business on the block, says they're preparing their artwork for athletes after the race.
"We'll have some designs ready so we don't have to spend a bunch of time preparing them while they wait so we'll be good to go," says Trevor Howeth.
The owner of the Thaitalian restaurant says business has been booming since yesterday.
"It's definitely more busy than it's been. Even though we are new here in this location, we moved here in June, and we can see a tremendous amount of business on top of what we've been doing," says Thaitalian co-owner Antonio Illiano. He adds, "We are hoping it will help us positively so we can pay our debts and do what we need to do as a business and employ more employees."
Now city leaders say this weekend's event doesn't just impact Cambridge it impacts Dorchester County as a whole because of how wide the race course stretches.