The organisers of the Dublin Marathon have announced the cancellation of the 2021 KBC Dublin Marathon scheduled to take place on Sunday 24th of October.

The race usually sees thousands of runners of all abilities hit the street of Dublin to take on the marathon distance of 26.2 miles.

Runners can still enter and take part in the KBC Virtual Dublin Marathon over the October Bank Holiday weekend; Saturday 23rd, Sunday 24th and Monday the 25th, but this is the second year that uncertainty around public health measures relating to Covid has stopped the race from taking place in its traditional form.

It is not the only athletics mass participation event to fall with the VHI Women’s Mini Marathon, the Mark Pollock Run in the Dark and the Grant Thornton 5K all switching to virtual form in 2021 as well as 2020.

“It is with great regret that we are cancelling the KBC Dublin Marathon for the second year in a row,” said Race Director Jim Aughney.

“Despite vigorous evaluations, there are still too many unknowns to be confident that we could provide a safe event given the pure scale of the marathon.”

“We have a duty of care to the runners, volunteers, suppliers and supporters. This will be extremely disappointing news for all participants entered. We want to thank them for their continued support.”

“We have come to a critical point in our event planning when a final decision needed to be made. We took into consideration the recent updates on modelling around Covid-19 and the immense challenges of creating a controlled, safe environment for the KBC Dublin Marathon which has a footprint of 26.2 miles with 25,000 runners and 200,000 supporters who line the streets to cheer them on.”

We would rather be here in October thinking we could have done it than worrying about whether we should have.”

All entries for the 2021 KBC Dublin Marathon will once again be valid for the 2022 race. For those who do not wish to avail of this, a full refund option will be available.

We never imagined we would be here this time last year but can only hope that we will not be ever again.

 

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