A two-day London Marathon next year would be a one-off to keep its “position of love” among people who live in the capital, the event’s director has said.
As preparations continue on Blackheath and in Greenwich Park for the start of this year’s marathon on Sunday, Hugh Brasher said a weekend-long event would raise more than £130 million for charity and bring in £400 million in social and economic events.
Organisers confirmed to The Greenwich Wire last month that they were working on plans for a two-day event to take place on April 24 and 25 next year, although they have yet to be approved.
Brasher told The Guardian on Wednesday that his team had been “working on the plans for a long time”.
“The idea was also overwhelmingly positively received,” he said. “But you have to bear in mind that the London Marathon has been going for 45 years and it’s got to a position of love, not only the sporting calendar but the calendar of London.
“You can lose that love, and we have to be mindful of that. And that is why it is very much a one and done. But there is a need in this country to do it.”
The event brings thousands of visitors to Greenwich each year, with TV pictures of runners passing the Cutty Sark seen around the world. This year, the first participants – elite wheelchair athletes – will start at 8.50am, with the mass race starting in waves from 9.35am.
While the event is an important part of the local calendar, parts of Greenwich, Blackheath, Woolwich and Charlton are effectively shut in by the marathon each year, with road closures and bus diversions beginning early in the morning lasting until mid-afternoon.
Adding a Saturday race – with more going on that day – would be even more disruptive.
A two-day race would allow 100,000 people to take part, with plans for one day to be devoted to elite and faster women and the other for men’s races, with mixed mass-participation races on both days.
Brasher said there had to be a “huge amount of consultation”.
““There are conversations going on this week, next week,” he said. “We do hope we will get signed off, but it is a huge undertaking, not only from our team’s point of view, but also London’s point of view.”
Rail services are the only way in and out of many areas shut in by the race – but even then they are regularly reduced by engineering works, as will happen again this year.
The line will be closed between London Bridge and St Pancras all day on Sunday, meaning that there will only be hourly services on Thameslink through Greenwich and Woolwich and no trains to get spectators to the section of route at Blackfriars.
Southeastern will increase its services to and from Cannon Street, particularly to and from Maze Hill and Greenwich, but this service boost will only last until about 1.30pm, when there will just be two Southeastern trains to Cannon Street and one Thameslink train to London Bridge each hour.
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