Vaccination is key for Dublin Marathon to allow all 25,000 entries to compete

The fate of this year’s KBC Dublin Marathon will be decided next month, with race director Jim Aughney saying the chance of all 25,000 entries being allowed to take part is “slim."

Under current proposals, all participants, staff, and volunteers will be subjected to antigen testing before arriving at the race venue, and Aughney says the final field size will be decided on June 25.

“For athletes that has to be a D-day,” said Aughney. “To be fair to the runner and to ourselves you need that four-month lead-in. By the 25th (of June) we’ll be able to say whether the event is on and we’ll have X or Y participants.” 

Aughney admitted “vaccination is key” for the successful staging of the event but he has little idea what size field might be possible on 24 October.

“The chances of 25,000 being allowed to run in the streets of Dublin might be slim but we’d be delighted with any number,” he said. 

“With any of these events you’re going to be restricted to smaller numbers, if we can get 10,000, 15,000, it’d be great news for the city, for the runners.” 

Aughney expects to run a test event in the summer to demonstrate to “the HSE, the government, and whoever needs to see” the mechanisms that will allow the event to held safely. 

“We have to make sure everyone has passed a test to run the event,” he said.

The race organization has taken a huge financial hit due to its cancellation in 2020 and while the entry fee has remained the same – with last year’s entries carried forward – Aughney acknowledges it will be significantly more expensive to host. 

Through Athletics Ireland, the race applied for financial assistance to Sport Ireland to alleviate the costs but “it didn’t go anywhere,” said Aughney. “We didn’t get any funding from Sport Ireland or any of the other authorities that give out funding.” 

posted Wednesday May 5th
by Cathal Dennehy