Running News Daily

Dublin Marathon set for return to the streets with record 25,000 field

It’s back, and barring any major bumps in the road between now and October, it’s set to be bigger than ever.

For Dublin Marathon race director Jim Aughney, being able to plan with confidence for 25,000 runners taking to the streets has him expressing a sentiment felt by many this week.

“Good times are back again,” he says.

His statement is partly based on the backing of Irish Life, which announced a three-year title sponsorship of the race, but also on a feeling among organisers that their best-laid plans will no longer have to go awry.

That’s been the case for the past two years, the plug pulled on the 2020 edition in May that year, while the 2021 race was cancelled last July, the logistical nightmare of a mass-participation event proving a bridge too far given the restrictions in place. In the end, it would actually have been possible to stage, but four months out there was no way to guarantee social distancing among up to 250,000 spectators.

“When we were making the decision, the requirement was to have people socially distanced in pods,” says Aughney. “There were a massive amount of barriers required and it’d have taken us the best part of a month to put them out and take them away. We’d have had to install barriers going across different driveways. Logistically, it wasn’t possible.

“The goalposts changed after but we wanted to make the decision early to be fair to the competitors so everybody wasn’t hanging on whether it was on or off. We wanted to give people time to train. It was a very difficult decision.”

All those with an entry last year had the option to carry their place forward and Aughney says the “vast majority” chose that over a refund, a sign of the race’s enduring popularity.

Back in 2020, a whopping 35,000 applied for a place but the field was capped at 25,000 due to logistics, and Aughney is again planning for a field of that size, the biggest in the event’s history.

“We want to put everything in place to make sure it goes ahead safely and securely,” he says.

Nine months out, there’s little point predicting what restrictions, if any, might be required, but Aughney says there’ll be a runner’s charter whereby competitors self-declare “they’re fit and healthy to run the event and not to show up if they’re not.”

“Everybody is expecting Covid to be here for quite a while, and (the EU digital certificate) might become a requirement again when the event comes around. But it’s very hard to predict.”

Bereft of a real-life race for the past two years – a virtual event did take place, with competitors logging 26.2 miles in their local areas – the event’s management company took a colossal hit in finances, along with many others: the race generates an estimated €9 million for charity and €26.5 million for the city of Dublin.

As such, the backing of Irish Life is a “tremendous boost” that allows Aughney to make “ambitious plans” for its future.

“Let’s hope we can get it back on for 2022 and beyond and that we don’t have to repeat what we had in 2020 and 2021 ever again.”

Aughney has been race director for 25 years and while the headaches and heartbreaks of recent years might have forced many to walk away, he was adamant he’d only call time when the event was back at its brilliant best.

“It’s like the soccer players or rugby players: you want to go out on a high,” he says. “After the difficult times we’ve had, this will give us that opportunity.”