Corona Virus and events

Barcelona marathon cancelled

and still ricky villa wrote: »

Probably not on many people's lists but Jerusalem marathon postponed too

Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

World half marathon postponed until oct

OOnegative wrote: »

Posted that yesterday, keep up!!

Damn!

Damo 2k9 wrote: »

Barcelona postponed until October 25th now too

Sorry just seen above..... :pac:

I have already written off 2020, all the major marathons are toast

Itziger wrote: »

Jeez, training is going to be dog tough without a race goal. I have a small Half in 2 weeks time that's still on. Cork marathon - although i haven't actually registered! - then there's Valencia in Dec. Hopefully the stuff will have settled down by then.

all the smaller races will still go ahead I reckon

Just think, we will all have the best base building phase of our lives!!

Ceepo wrote: »

Between the 5k, 10k and half marathon there will be upward of 35.000k people taking part over the course of the day.
Absolutely nothing about Corona virus at registration today or walking around Den Haag..

Apart from less than 10 people wearing a face mask

I live here so we’ll aware what’s happening, typo re my 15,000 comment as you said upward of 35,000 will be towing the line over the various distances tomorrow. Best of luck with your race, hope the weather behaves for you.

Ceepo wrote: »

I knew you were based around Den Haag, just making other posters aware of what was happening here.
Only jogging the 5k. Mrs C is taking on her 1st half after completing the C25k in the autumn. A big step up for her but the finish line is the goal.

Fair play to her, there’s a sneaky drag tell her in last 5k, nothing more than a gradual rise in the road but it comes at the wrong time!! Last few kilometers are brilliant heading back into the Malieveld, crowds really help you.

OOnegative wrote: »

More have contracted the Coronavirus here in The Netherlands than at home and no events are being cancelled. The CPC which will have upwards of over 15,000 running across various distances is on here Sunday and no mention or need for it to be cancelled.

I had entered Barcelona and just found out today it is being cancelled. I'm surprised there's still entries available for Rotterdam, but there is. If things weren't so up in the air all over Europe, I'd enter right now, but I fear it will go the same was as Barcelona Marathon. Would you be confident enough that Rotterdam will still be going ahead?

OOnegative wrote: »

Jaysis asking me to play Russian Roulette with your hard earned money A!! All I can say is my Missus works for an International Organisation here and the Dutch take on it is they are taking things day by day. The 5th of April is a long way away..... One thing I can say about The Netherlands they don’t easily over react.

Thanks. It sounded like you ran the show over there. I must have taken you up wrong. I looked a little more into registration and it is actually sold out. There's a ¼ marathon I could enter, but that's definitely not worth the risk.

OOnegative wrote: »

If it came across that way I apologise. Just trying to help out.

I'm only joking. Appreciate the replies.

I think it's safe to say I've all but come to terms with the fact that Manchester will likely be cancelled. I was only using it as a training run as my year so far has not gone to plan, but with the numbers infected per day in the UK surely this will be the outcome.

That said, only for the coronavirus I would not have realised until the last minute that I had no accommodation booked...

Here's hoping for the best outcome in all aspects.

I'm going to offer my tuppence worth of an opinion based on my voluntary role with the DCM over the last couple of years.

There is a huge amount of planning involved in these events, crowd safety, participant safety, security of the route, medical...etc...etc Event plans covering all these eventualities would have been drawn up months in advance to obtain a licence to run these events. Everyone will have been asked to amend these plans to reflect the current situation. This may mean looking for an increase in medical personal, security personal including Gardai, emergency access/egress and crowd overflow evacuation areas.

Event management will have been asked for a specific plan in dealing with someone who falls ill with breathing difficulties, crowd safety issues where a rumour begins because someone coughed beside someone and a crush develops and they will have been asked to provide extra facilities re hand washing etc.
The big thing is we will be tying up volunteer medical personal who may well be needed to cover a shortfall in the health service, a lot of these volunteers already work in that environment and we will be putting them in a high risk situation. Gardai may not have the numbers on the day. Should organisers ask spectators to stay off the course to mitigate some of the issues?

As you can see there are so many 'IF'S' but for me the straw that will break the camels back will be tying up of emergency personal when they may be needed else where. An increased incidence of sickness among the Gardai, NAS, local fire services and members of voluntary groups be they medical or civil defence would make it impractical to run large scale events.

I know London have expressed the view that large groups may turn up on the day and run the course anyway, but cancelling or delaying a race far enough in advance may prevent this happening. I've heard running them as virtual events been mentioned, where you follow your training program and run the race on the day but at home, you'd get your medal t-shirt and a discount for a future race. The obvious problem there is, groups gathering locally via social media and you have large numbers running together.

If it was my decision and I'm far down the totem pole, I'd cancel events due to be held in the next 4-6 weeks straight away and plan to cancel/delay those within the next 3 months and carry out a rolling review of the situation re events further on from that.

Thing is we don't know how much worse it will get if at all but using Italy as a template of how not to do things in the initial stages means we might need to be proactive rather than reactive.