London Marathon To Go Ahead As Elite-only Race

London Marathon Events has confirmed that the 2020 Virgin Money London Marathon will be staged as an elite-only event, and will take place around a closed look in St James’s Park.

Elite races for the men’s, women’s and wheelchair events will go ahead on Sunday 4th October, and will be broadcast on the BBC, meaning fans will still have the chance to watch Eliud Kipchoge and Keninisa Bekele go head to head in the men’s race, as well as stars like Bridget Kosgei in the women’s and David Weir in the wheelchair events.

Event organisers have confirmed that everyone with a place in the 2020 event will still have the chance to take part in The 40th Race by running the 26.2 mile marathon distance from home or anywhere in the world on the course of their choice.

All finishers will receive a finisher medal and New Balance finisher T-shirt. In addition, all runners and charities will also be able to defer their place to a future London Marathon – either in 2021, 2022 or 2023.

“We have been working for months on a number of different scenarios with the health and safety of our runners, our charities, our sponsors, our volunteers, our medics, our communities and our city always our priority,” said Hugh Brasher, Event Director, the Virgin Money London Marathon. 

“We had detailed plans to deliver a socially distanced mass participation event – either a run or a walk – and we were planning to utilise new technology to do this. We were looking to use a revolutionary technology using Bluetooth and ultra wideband ranging, which is about to be launched worldwide.

“This would have enabled us to accurately monitor every participant’s distance from each other, work out if the participant spent more than 15 minutes within 1.5 metres (or any distance we set) of anyone else and then contact them post-event if anyone had informed us that they had contracted Covid-19 in the two weeks after the event.

“Despite all our efforts, the fantastic support from all of our partners and the progress that has been made on planning for the return of smaller mass participation events that are not on the roads, it has not been possible to go ahead with a mass socially distanced walk or run.

“In parallel with the work on the plans for the socially distanced mass event, we had a team working on planning the elite races for men, women and wheelchair athletes in a biosphere environment in St James’s Park and another team creating a truly inspiring Virgin Money London Marathon which means participants across the UK and abroad can still be part of The 40th Race from their home or wherever they might be on 4 October.”