FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Creating the bubble, cutting-edge technology, flexible thinking -
how the 2020 Virgin Money London Marathon became the only major city
marathon to take place since the Covid-19 pandemic struck
The 2020 Virgin Money London Marathon on Sunday 4 October was the first
major marathon in the world to take place since the Covid-19 pandemic
changed the sporting landscape. It was also the first truly global sporting
event in the UK to take place in a non-stadium or venue setting since the
country went into lockdown in March. How was it done?
An autumn London Marathon for the first time
The 2020 Virgin Money London Marathon was due to be held on Sunday 26 April
- that now seems a lifetime ago. As the Covid-19 epidemic turned into a
global pandemic, London Marathon Events announced on Friday 13 March that
the event had been postponed to Sunday 4 October, the first time ever the
London Marathon would be held in the autumn.
The postponement was announced at a time when hundreds of events across the
UK were being cancelled. However, London Marathon Events, unlike virtually
all other organisers, was able to announce a new date thanks to the strong
relationships and huge support for the world's greatest marathon and
biggest one day annual fundraising event from a multitude of stakeholders
and partners.
Speaking immediately after communicating the news to all runners who had
signed up to run in the 2020 race, Hugh Brasher, Event Director of the
Virgin Money London Marathon, said: "We are extremely grateful for all the
support we have received from City Hall, the London boroughs of Greenwich,
Lewisham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, the City of Westminster and the City of
London, Transport for London, the emergency services, The Royal Parks, BBC
TV and many others as we worked to find an alternative date."
Only certainty is uncertainty
When the 4 October date was announced on Friday 13 March, the hope and
expectation of Brasher and his team was the event would run in its usual
format in 2020, just six months later. But the true scale of the pandemic
was only just beginning to emerge. Just 10 days after the postponement
announcement, the UK went into a full lockdown. As the country remained in
lockdown throughout spring and into early summer, the London Marathon
Events team were looking at all options to deliver one of Britain's
flagship sporting events while others fell by the wayside, seemingly on an
almost weekly basis.
Brasher spoke to reporters ahead of what would have been the date of the
2020 Virgin Money London Marathon on Sunday 26 April and said: "The flame
is still burning. And is there hope? Absolutely. But you have to do what's
right for society. You usually have 750,000 people out in central London
watching 45,000 runners. Then there's the medics, the 6,000 volunteers and
the transport system. There's so much to take into account when making any
decision."
London Marathon Events committed to making a final decision on the 2020
event by August and staff continued to work on a range of scenarios as the
landscape changed on an almost weekly basis. Scenarios ranged from holding
a socially-distanced mass event to an elite-only race. As Brasher said
continuously to his team, ‘the only certainty is uncertainty and we have to
remain agile'.
Elite race confirmed
A final decision had to be made.
The overall picture in the UK during July and going into August, though
improving, did not indicate that an event involving 40,000 people running
through the streets of London in October would be possible. Sport had
returned but was taking place behind closed doors. Restrictions were
lifting gradually but local lockdowns were being implemented and there was
a growing sense that once autumn and winter arrived, cases would again be
on the rise.
London Marathon Events had been working on plans to deliver a socially
distanced mass participation event - either a run or a walk - and were
looking to use new technology which would monitor the distance participants
were from one another throughout their run (this planning did not go to
waste as it would be used for the elite event, more of which later).
Ultimately, however, the challenge of managing spectators, ensuring the
emergency services had access across London, the increased likelihood of a
second spike and the ongoing concern about the pressure on the NHS, ensured
a final decision was made that there could be no mass-participation event
on the streets of London.
Instead, the 2020 Virgin Money London Marathon would have an entirely new
format for 2021: elite races only on a closed-loop circuit in central
London and a virtual race for 45,000 people who were encouraged to run the
2020 Virgin Money London Marathon - Your Way, the first virtual event in
the 40 year history of the London Marathon.
Build it and they will come
When athletes' agents were first contacted to ask if their runners would be
interested in coming to London, the response was unequivocal: if London
Marathon Events could build it then the world's best would come - it was
now down to Brasher's team to hold up their end of the bargain.
How do you put on an elite race for more than 100 of the best marathon
athletes on the planet in a safe, secure environment? That would be a
challenge given 12 months of planning but for London Marathon Events, the
total preparation time amounted to about eight weeks.
The first priority was confirming a course. All other sports that had
returned to action during the course of the summer of 2020 had done so in
either a stadium (think football and cricket) or in a secure venue such as
Silverstone in the case of F1. There had been no organisation that had
tried to close down public roads to create an event.
The team's solution was to create a venue that could be contained and
prevent general public access. The organisation has a long-standing and
strong relationship with The Royal Parks, the Mayor of London's Office and
Westminster City Council and their support meant the first choice of course
could go ahead: the event to be held on a closed-loop circuit around St
James's Park in central London which would ensure the iconic finish on The
Mall would remain in the same place as it has done for the past 27 years.
A constant dialogue with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and
Sport (DCMS) ensured that the Government gave its blessing to the plans and
granted the necessary permissions for athlete travel. With the green light
given, a 19.7 lap closed-loop circuit was created which followed the
perimeter of St James's Park, starting and finishing on The Mall. Screened
barriers were to be erected on either side of the course to deter people
from coming to watch on the day and, in effect, a venue had been created in
the heart of London.
The London Marathon Events team was also able to build on invaluable
experience from 12 months earlier as an integral part of the delivery team
that put on the INEOS 1.59 Challenge, Eliud Kipchoge's historic sub two
hour marathon which took place on a closed loop circuit in Vienna. For that
event, the team had carried out detailed research on putting a marathon on
a looped course and, furthermore, when searching for a course for the INEOS
1.59 Challenge, had explored the the possibility of staging the challenge
on the St James's Park loop.
Creating a biosecure bubble
Securing a course and a world-class line up in four races (elite men, elite
women and men's and women's wheelchair) was the relatively easy part - or
at least areas of great expertise for the London Marathon Events team.
However the team had no previous experience in putting on an event in a
Covid-19 world but they learnt fast.
To make the race completely safe and secure for athletes and all staff, the
team created a biosecure bubble around the event. Information on the best
way to do this was garnered from other sports which had returned to action,
as well as from medical and security experts and Government advisors from
DCMS.
The biosecure bubble would be created from the moment the elite athletes
arrived in the country to the moment they left the UK after the race. In
total it amounted to a nine-day window from Sunday 28 September to Monday 5
October.
The first challenge was finding a location where elite marathon athletes
could stay for the week leading up to the race. A checklist was drawn up
for what was needed: exclusive use of a hotel, within an hour's travelling
distance from the course, grounds large enough for athletes to train in,
big enough to create socially distanced eating and relaxation areas, the
ability to hold remote press conferences…the list was exhaustive.
Eventually a hotel was found about 60 minutes outside central London. Its
identity was kept secret to prevent anyone from turning up to see athletes.
Hotel staff were booked in for the full eight days to ensure they were in
the bubble and security was booked to man the site 24/7.
Race sponsor Abbott, a life-changing tech company and global diagnostics
leader, provided the critically important Covid-19 testing for the elite
athletes, staff and everyone else working in the biosecure bubble.
All elite athletes, their coaches and support staff had to undertake a
Covid-19 test in their country of origin before flying into London, Anyone
who failed a test could not travel. In addition, every single person that
went into the hotel from the UK had to return a negative Covid-19 test four
days prior to arrival. Everyone was tested again the day they arrived at
the hotel and again on Friday 2 October. Absolutely nothing was left to
chance.
Of all the athletes and support staff invited to London, only two people,
both from Ethiopia, had positive Covid-19 tests prior to travel. Degitu
Azimeraw, the 2019 Amsterdam Marathon champion, and Haji Adillio, the coach
to the eventual men's champion Shura Kitata, were the unfortunate pair
prevented from travelling. Adillio had been away from home and only in
contact by telephone with his athletes for the 10 days prior to the travel
window, meaning his athletes could still travel.
Another headache for the London Marathon team was getting the athletes from
their countries to London in a safe environment. The majority of the
international athletes were coming from East Africa, either Kenya or
Ethiopia, so to mitigate against the risk of small groups travelling on
different scheduled flights to the UK, a charter flight was booked for all
of the East Africans. The plane, containing world record holders Eliud
Kipchoge and Brigid Kosgei, made stops in Eldoret, Kenya, and Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, before heading to London.
Elsewhere around the world, athletes were boarding planes in the likes of
Chicago, Melbourne and Amsterdam on their way to London.
On arrival at the hotel, every athlete and support staff member was tested
again by the Abbott team and all tested negative. Everyone resident in the
bubble was then tested again on Friday 2 October, two days before race day,
for a final time. Given all the hard work and effort that had been put in
by the organisers to this point, awaiting the final test results was
undoubtedly the nerviest time in the entire event.
Extra reinforcement with cutting-edge Bump technology
Though the Friday testing was an anxious time for all, London Marathon
staff were reassured by the knowledge that they had done everything in
their power to ensure all those in the hotel were Covid free, including
introducing new technology to implement social distancing.
The Bump devices, created by Tharsus, were worn by all elite athletes and
500 members of the Virgin Money London Marathon's operational team both in
the athlete hotel and at the venue to help maintain the biosecure bubble
for the event.
The Bump devices were attached to a lanyard and worn around the neck like a
medal. Bump helped inform effective social-distancing behaviour by using
sophisticated Radio Frequency technology to create a 'Personal Motion
System' that immediately alerts wearers when they are getting too close to
another person. Going within two metres of someone prompted a blue flashing
light and within 1.2 metres a red flashing light and loud beeping noise.
Data was downloaded daily which allowed organisers to accurately monitor
how often and how long elite athletes and event staff spent in close
proximity to each other. If anyone in the bubble tested positive for
Covid-19 either during the event or during the two weeks following the
event, organisers would be able to trace interactions back to specific
wearers and inform them accordingly.
These Bump devices were part of the new normal in the elite athlete hotel
as the best marathoners in the world got used to the flashing warning
lights and sounds should they get too close to another person.
Away from the hotel, the Bumps were worn by all staff working on the build
of the event site in the run-up to and on race day itself as the team
prepared to build a venue on the Queen's front garden befitting The 40th
Race in London Marathon history.
Race Day
A quick glance at the BBC television pictures on race day morning and you
would have been forgiven for thinking that though it might have been six
months later, it looked like the same old London Marathon - with the
familiar iconic finish on The Mall. But the reality was very different.
Just like the work that went into delivering the hotel bubble, every last
intricate detail of Race Day was planned to ensure the bubble, which would
travel from hotel to the venue, would remain secure.
From the individual areas (including personal toilets!) provided for each
athlete to the socially-distanced media interviews post-race, nothing was
overlooked.
The halt to trials of bringing fans back to sport in September extinguished
any hope that some spectators would be allowed into the venue which meant
staff were brought in to patrol the interior and exterior perimeters of the
route - though the awful weather on the day did mean most people were
content to watch it in the warmth of their homes.
A very limited number of media was allowed into the venue with London
Marathon Events creating their own content service which pushed out
interviews and B-roll footage throughout the day. This followed the virtual
press conferences held during race week and the daily updates of life
inside the bubble in video and photographic form which were produced every
day from the athletes' hotel and made available for free to all media.
The only lack of social distancing that took place for the whole week was
when the racing started but women's world record holder Brigid Kosgei is
used to running solo and she proved again that she is streets ahead of the
opposition to win the first race of the day, in heavy rain and wind.
However Kosgei was the only favourite to come out on top in a year where
the unexpected really should have been expected.
Men's world record holder, sub-two hour marathon man and four-time champion
Eliud Kipchoge (Kenya) dramatically surrendered his title with Ethiopia's
Shura Kitata triumphing while both Brent Lakatos (Canada) and Nikita den
Boer (Netherlands) overturned the form books to win the wheelchair races.
For all the winners, their moments of triumph will be memories they will
never forget. But even in the instant triumph of winning the greatest
marathon in the world, they were reminded this is 2020 and nothing is as it
was. Bumps were returned, celebratory pictures and media interviews were
held with social distancing prioritised and the never-to-be-forgotten
moment of standing on top of the podium in front of Buckingham Palace,
posing for pictures was done while wearing a face mask - an image that will
forever capture the London Marathon in 2020.
While Kipchoge - the greatest marathon runner in history - was not on the
podium himself this time, he summed up the feelings of all the athletes
that had taken part when he said: "I want to thank the organisation of the
London Marathon for going the extra mile to make the event possible. It
shows what's possible and gives hope other organisations can incorporate
their plans to make sports possible in current times."
Long after Kipchoge and the other elites had left The Mall, darkness had
descended and London Marathon staff were in a race against time to
deconstruct the venue they had built for this historic occasion.
In the murky October gloom, hundreds of staff worked in the rain and wind
to take down in a matter of hours what had been months in the planning.
Amid the usual flurry of work seen while de-rigging a site, there was one
recurring and very 2020 sight and sound: the flashing lights and warning
beeps of the Bump technology that ensured everyone, to the very end, did
all they could to protect one another in a year and an event like no other.
That was The 40th Race.
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