Final decison on October’s Dublin Marathon pushed back

With just under four months still to go, organisers of the KBC Dublin Marathon have extended their original deadline to announce details of what exact shape and form the 2021 event may take on the October Bank Holiday weekend.

It was agreed back in early May that by this Friday (June 25th) a decision needed to be reached in order to satisfy the concluding planning stages for both the organisers and runners: however it was announced on Friday morning this decision will be now made “no later than Thursday July 15th”.

“We had planned to be in a position to make the official announcement today on whether the event could go ahead,” said Jim Aughney, Race Director. “However, we are still in the process of engaging the relevant stakeholders. Our priority is to bring the Marathon back to the streets of Dublin safely for all involved and we would ask for runners’ patience and support at this time while we endeavour to make this a possibility.”

While unlikely to be the full 25,000 sell-out entry of runners originally signed up in advance of the 2020 edition, postponed in May of last year due to Covid-19, there is the expectation a more limited entry will get the go ahead.

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With several other big-city marathons already declaring revised race plans from the spring to this coming autumn, Dublin’s date of Sunday October 24th is also sufficiently far ahead to assume the near full vaccination of the population.

However, there are still likely to be some restrictions around social distancing, even at outdoor events, and the number of overseas runners, which were set to make up around 20 per cent of the original 25,000 runners.

That decision to postpone the 2020 event, announced in May of that year, allowed for all entries to be carried over to this October, or the option of a refund: with just 10 per cent taking up that refund option there will only be limited additional entries, if any.

The postponement of the 2020 Dublin Marathon also meant there was no National Marathon Championship last year, scheduled to take place within the event, all those entries also transferred to this October.

The Boston Marathon, typically held in April and with over 30,000 runners from all over the world, announced plans for a limited 20,000-entry race on October 11th, as has New York (November 7th), Chicago (October 10th), Berlin (September 26th) and Tokyo (October 17th).

The London Marathon, also traditionally held in April, is now set for October 3rd, the organisers there opening up 50,000 entries, most of which were decided by lottery, an increase of more than 7,000 on the previous finisher record.