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I'm a musician and I see this sort of attitude among the musicians I know on the festival circuit. The musicians with real talent - the ones for whom music is a joy and a pleasure, who love to play and who love to make music for its own sake - are always very encouraging of the amateurs. One of them, a phenomenal pianist, always invites some kid up on stage to play a tune during his sets.
The ones who get all up in arms about amateurs are typically the ones with less talent - musicians who feel somehow inadequate or inferior to the truly talented ones, and who, as a result, can't enjoy the talent they do have because they are so consumed with envy. It's never pretty, and the cause of the attitude is pretty clear.
I never thought that this snobbery could apply to running, but I guess it works the same way. (I'm not a runner at all, and certainly never going to run a marathon, so Mr. McClelland is safe from me at least). Note that the Kenyans who are winning these marathons, at least according to the article, seem to be perfectly OK with the crowds of slow amateurs. They don't care; they don't have anything to prove. It's the ones like Mr. McClelland who feel inadequate and therefore whale on the amateurs.
I admire those amateurs. I think that staggering across the finish line is quite a formidable goal in itself.
Note, incidentally, that Mr.McClelland is not a professional writer, and therefore, by his own standards, should leave the writing for the professionals. One could write just as scathing an article about how America's high journalistic standards have been wrecked by feel-good amateur "journalists" like Mr.McClelland whose only goal is to get some verbiage published.
