Parkrun under pressure to reinstate all-time records

PARKRUN organisers are under mounting pressure to reinstate all-time records for participants after nearly 7,000 people signed a petition about the issue in two days.

Gender, age group and course records were wiped from websites last week after Parkrun rejected a campaign to compel transgender runners to record their biological sex.

Groups including Women in Sport, the Women’s Rights Network and the Policy Exchange, as well as former Olympic athletes Sharron Davies, Daley Thompson and Mara Yamauchi, have urged Parkrun not to allow entrants to self-identify their gender.

Last week the Policy Exchange reported that at least three female Parkrun records were held by transgender women, and campaigners said that by having publicised records for age, gender, number of wins and courses, Parkrun must follow governing bodies such as UK Athletics by protecting a natal category for women and girls.

Parkrun refused, however, arguing that it is a community event and public health charity that is focused on inclusion rather than competition, and scrapped all-time records from its site. Yet with weekly results still being produced, albeit in a reduced form, campaigners remain adamant that sex-at-birth categories should be introduced to ensure competitive fairness for girls and women.

A separate campaign has also been launched that calls for the all-time performance records – which began with Under-11s and went all the way up to over-90s – to be reinstated.

A petition went live on Saturday and by yesterday 6,900 people had registered their support.

Parkrun has said that the changes to its results page were not influenced by the debate around transgender participation.

“We believe that our current solution is the most appropriate available at this time,” a spokesman said.