The New York City and Berlin Marathons have been cancelled due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic worldwide.
New York Marathon was set to take place on November 1st of this year. This would have the 50th running of the event. The marathon itself is the largest in the world with over 53,000 participants in 2019. Moreover, The New York Times report that City officials and New York Road Runners have opted to cancel the event deeming it to be “too risky”. New York Road Runners chief executive, Michael Capiraso said that he and other organisers held out hope that the race could in fact happen. He said, “There was hope but that turned to uncertainty, and given what we have seen the past months this was really the only decision,”.
It’s not the first Marathon to be cancelled due to the virus. The Berlin marathon has also been postponed. The London Marathon is set to go ahead in autumn, as is the Chicago Marathon but these could also be under threat with the threat of a second wave of the virus been predicted by experts in the field of health.
The race was last cancelled in 2012 due to Hurricane Sandy which hammered the region a few days before the event was due to take place. They decided to go against the option of just having elite athletes run only, due to the fear of crowds gathering on the streets to watch and uncertainty of travel for international athletes. Aliphine Tuliamuk, who won the US Olympic marathon trials in February was also bitterly disappointed the marathon won’t be going ahead. She said to the New York Times, that she is training for the love of training. In addition, she said, “I sort of knew this was coming,” . “After what we have been through the past four months, it’s the right call.”
