Brighton Marathon: Postponed September Race Altered As Organisers Tease Novel Plan

Thursday, 30 July 2020 10:00

By John Warburton @Warblefly

From the Brighton Marathon (Photo: Kate Fisher / Flickr / Creative Commons)

The team behind the immensely popular Brighton Marathon Weekend announced this morning (July 30) the events originally postponed to September won't happen as planned — but plans are afoot for something else to take its place.

In telling disappointed potential marathon runners that they'll still be able to take part in an alternative running-based event, substituting for the full Brighton Marathon Weekend, organisers paid tribute to NHS and front-line workers still coping with the pandemic's effects.

The team behind the event, first scheduled for this April, has explained its thinking behind cancelling the postponed event as it hinted at a remarkable substitute.

Organisers said the many spectators likely to watch a September marathon would have found it hard to maintain social distancing, which it is likely would still be required by that date.

Additionally, they felt it would have been unfair to be an additional burden on the city's NHS services, particularly as many volunteer marathon medical-team members are, themselves, NHS staff.

However, the team behind the event added that having no event would be seriously detrimental to the many good causes that runners support, and to the local economy.

They estimated that the city's hospitality industry would lose a total of over £12m in revenue, and local charities would miss out on collections and sponsorship incoming in excess of £500,000.

After conducting a survey of runners, to discover attitudes to mass participation events during the pandemic, Brighton Marathon Weekend officials said they'd found:

An overwhelming number of runners "can't wait for events to take place again".
Many runners would be willing to be part of an event taking place before a vaccine is available, provided the event is Covid-19 safe.
Additional necessary hygiene and safety measures would not affect their enjoyment of an event.

With this in mind, organisers said, they intended to update the Brighton Marathon Weekend community with proposals for a new event.

They added a promise that it should "live up to the high standards we uphold" while being safe for participants and the city of Brighton and Hove.

Further plans are expected in mid-August.