Plan for 2020 Dublin Marathon appears to be on its last legs
WHILE the jury is still out, it looks as if the 2020 Dublin City Marathon will not take place this autumn.
The race’s board of directors met on Thursday night to discuss the future of the race that was scheduled for Sunday, October 25.
It would be the 41st running of the event and had been sold out for months.
A decision on the event cannot be delayed much longer because the merchandise for this year’s race needs to be ordered in the next couple of weeks.
The final decision is expected on Tuesday.
Race organisers announced last month that the Fingal four-mile race, scheduled to take place on May 24, and the South Dublin 10K race, scheduled for July 26, have been postponed due to the Covid19 pandemic.
Race officials could not be reached last night for further comment on the marathon.
But given the current rules on social distancing that are likely to remain in place for the foreseeable future, running an event with more than 20,000 participants and a quarter of a million spectators is not practical.
Medical experts have suggested that the risk of participants in a marathon passing on the virus to fellow runners is very low.
However, it would still be regarded as unsafe due to the congregation of runners at the start of the race and crowds.
The last big city marathon to take place prior to the worldwide Covid-19 shutdown was in Tokyo, where only the elite runners were allowed to participate.
All the other major spring marathons, such as Boston and London, were postponed until the autumn.
Major question marks remain over whether they will now go ahead as the Berlin marathon, which was due to take place in September, has already been cancelled.
The Dublin marathon was first held in 1980 and after an initial surge in interest, the event almost folded during the 1990s when participation levels dropped to below 3,000.
However, under the leadership of race director Jim Aughney, the event was revived and now attracts more than 20,000 entries a year.