Organisers of the Dublin Marathon say it was “too much of a risk” to press ahead with planning for this year’s October race.
The marathon has been cancelled for the second year in a row, amid concerns over COVID-19 restrictions and the risk posed by the Delta variant.
The race was planned for October 24th - well after the Government’s September target for vaccinating every adult who wants a COVID-19 vaccine.
Despite that, organisers of the marathon say there are still “too many unknowns” and they’ve therefore cancelled this year's event “with great regret”.
"We've moved from protecting the vulnerable to protecting the fearful' @kierancuddihy isn't happy that the Dublin Marathon has been canceled.@TheHardShoulder pic.twitter.com/xOd8TEWQG9
— NewstalkFM (@NewstalkFM) July 7, 2021
On The Hard Shoulder, race director Jim Aughney said they had to make a decision now about whether the race could proceed.
He said: “At this stage, we’re at a critical time for the runner to build up their mileage in preparation for the marathon, and for us a critical time in the organisation of the event where we need to book personnel, product and so on and so forth.
“We’ve met with all the stakeholders, just asking them to give their opinion on what the medical situation might be in October.
"Again, nobody can predict that with any degree of certainty… but people are talking about 1,000 cases per day in September, and that’s on top of a health system which had a cyberattack a number of weeks ago.”
He said social distancing for spectators could mean tens of thousands of barriers, with weeks of work needed to prepare the city for safe ‘pods’.
He said they’re not willing to gamble that “absolutely everyone will be vaccinated” by October.
He explained: “We’re making a decision now - we can’t make it on a hope or guess that might happen.
“As of now, the requirement would be we’d have to socially distance the spectators on the route… time-wise that would take possibly about a month to actually install and remove [barriers], and that’s just time, let alone costs.
“If we had a cast-iron guarantee - and nobody can give you a cast-iron guarantee today - that there will not be social distancing required and everyone will be vaccinated… then the decision would be a lot easier to make, and we would be delighted to put on the event.
“For us to take that risk now, 14 weeks out, it just wasn’t a runner, for lack of a better term."
The Belfast Marathon is currently still scheduled to go ahead as planned earlier in October.
However, Mr Aughney said the thinking in one jurisdiction is not the same as in another - pointing to Boris Johnson’s controversial push to lift almost all COVID-19 restrictions from July 19th.
He said organisers of the Dublin Marathon had been hoping 2021 would be the year the race would return - but now they hope it can go ahead in 2022 instead.
