The director of Bolton Marathon says runners will not be refunded after cancelling the event due to financial difficulty.
Race director Richard Smith confirmed participants will not get their money back in a statement posted to social media on Thursday (April 14). He blamed the Covid pandemic for the cancellation.
In a lengthy post on the marathon’s official Facebook page, he said: "To all runners, volunteers and supporters of the Bolton Marathon,
“We launched the marathon in October 2019 and received an incredible response. From runners wanting to take on a new and different challenge to community groups, schools and businesses wanting to get involved. The launch of the event was the culmination of almost 2 years' work to set the Bolton Marathon aside from all other mass participation events, just like it did when it was the race to run back in the 1980s.
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“Everything we did was to ensure the Bolton Marathon would compete with the big races in the world, attract runners from around the world but importantly be a force for good within Bolton and the wider region. It’s always been a non-profit organisation with any profit made being donated to a charity established to independently distribute those funds to the people of Bolton. Alongside this, we pledged to be the first single use plastic free road marathon in the UK. The Bolton Marathon was going to show the way for others to follow.
“By December 2019, things were going well. Entries were coming in, the Bolton Marathon community was growing really well on social media, plans were pressing on with many different local authority departments and other organisations and there was definitely something very special about this race.
“But in January 2020, there was something on the horizon that no one saw coming or knew how to deal with. When the world closed, in March 2020, entries stopped coming in, we lost a major global sponsor that was about to sign up and all we wanted to do was keep the amazing community going. A difficult thing when everything had been online. No one had ever experienced the modern Bolton Marathon and quite rightly everyone’s priorities had now changed.
“As Director of the race, I tried to do the right thing using the information available to me at the time. I had no special insight, only the same information that everyone else had from the media and the government. We put staff on furlough and kept doing what we could to keep it alive online with virtual challenges, training videos, interviews with experts and our amazing running community pushed on.
“We had a glimmer of optimism in August 2020 when we released the date for the rescheduled 2021 race, we had a handful of new entries but this was sadly short lived. When Lockdown 2 came in January 2020, the plans for the 2021 event were quickly dashed and we had no choice but to cancel the event. Keeping the business running with no income was becoming increasingly more difficult yet I believed that there were still avenues we needed to explore to keep the event going. Against advice from some of those closest to me, I refused to believe this was the end and to wind the company up so soon.
“The marathon and 10k went virtual from May 2021 for anyone who wanted to do it with an incentive for those to sign up to the 2022 race with almost 100 people taking it on. However, I couldn’t open entries with the potential of less than 100 new entries. The cost of organising this race is very significant and I had to be sure that it was definitely happening if I was to start taking entry money from people. A totally different position from October 2019 when we opened entries based on over 5000 registrations of interest.
“I know I’ve been quiet over the last few months and for that I sincerely apologise. I have left social media for very personal reasons and even before the future of the race was in jeopardy. The last 12 months have taken their toll on me financially as the Bolton Marathon is something I’ve invested in heavily with my own money and years of my time. I wholeheartedly believed this was going to be one of the best races in the world and I set it up to be just that. And that was the appeal for so many people from around the world when they signed up.
“I’ve been exploring as many opportunities as possible to keep everyone’s entries secure and to give the race a chance in the future however, I have now exhausted all avenues to do so and without success.
“This leads me with no choice but to say that due to the financial impact the Coronavirus pandemic has had on the company over the last 2 years, the event is no longer financially viable, and will not be returning as planned. As per entry terms and conditions, all entries are non-refundable. I understand this is not the situation anyone wants, however, the economic challenges we’ve faced through the last 2 years gives me no choice.
“Bolton Marathon LTD will now go through the winding up process and as a result I’m unable to reply to individual emails and messages and social media pages and the website will be closed down with immediate effect.
“I sincerely thank you for all your support over the last 3 years and I'm sorry I've not been able to deliver what I set out to achieve back in 2018.”
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