Boston and London Marathons Postponed Until Fall – The New York Times

After resisting calls to cancel the race for weeks, the Boston Athletic Association announced Friday that the Boston Marathon would be postponed until September because of mounting concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.

Shortly after that announcement, another major race, the London Marathon, was postponed. It had been scheduled for April 26, six days after the Boston Marathon. For some British runners the London race would have served as a qualifier for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo in late July, another event that could be canceled or postponed because of the pandemic, though organizers have insisted the Olympics will take place as planned.

The Boston Marathon will be held Sept. 14. The London Marathon will take place on Oct. 4.

The announcements injected new turmoil into the spring long-distance running season, both for elite runners, who often plan on participating in one marathon in the fall and one in the spring, and weekend warriors.

“On matters of public health and safety we take our guidance from the officials entrusted with protecting the public in this area,” said Tom Grilk, chief executive of the B.A.A. “We understand our role, along with our partners, in ensuring a safe environment for all participants, volunteers, spectators, and supporters that meets the standards set by those officials.”

Boston’s 26.2-mile race first took place in 1897 and has been held annually through wars, periods of domestic tension, and in intense weather.

Mayor Martin J. Walsh of Boston also noted the race brings more than $200 million to the city.

“So you think about the economic impact on the city but the bottom line is my job as mayor is to make sure that people are safe,” Mayor Walsh said earlier this week.

The race, which follows a course from Hopkinton, in Boston’s western suburbs, to downtown Boston, has a field of 30,000 runners, and hundreds of thousands more line the streets to watch. Other than the Olympic trials, it is the only major marathon in the country that most runners have to qualify for by running fast enough to meet a standard for their age group.

It is a major accomplishment for weekend warriors, and the qualifying times last for one year only. The athletic association does not allow runners to defer their entries for a year if they get injured. About 6,000 runners get into the race by committing to raise money for charity.

The London Marathon attracts 40,000 runners, many of whom come from across Europe, and had little choice but postpone its event. “The world is in an unprecedented situation grappling with a global pandemic of COVID-19 and public health is everyone’s priority,” Hugh Brasher, the director of the race, said in a statement.

More than 750,000 spectators were expected to cheer on the 40,000 runners through the streets of London. That includes some of the top elite marathoners in the world, including the defending champions and world record holders Eliud Kipchoge and Brigid Kosgei. The marathon was going to create a rare showdown between Kipchoge and Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia, who missed breaking Kipchoge’s record by just two seconds in October.

On Twitter, Kipchoge said that the news was “unfortunate” but that he respected the decision.

Both races are part of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, a collection of the six largest marathons in the world. This is the third marathon in the series impacted by the novel coronavirus. The Tokyo Marathon was restricted to elite athletes.

Those elite athletes rely heavily on appearance fees at major races for income, but their bodies can usually only handle two in a calendar year. With Boston and London moving into the same season as marathons in New York, Berlin and Chicago, it’s likely the top runners may receive just one major race payday in 2020 instead of the usual two.

Coronavirus has wreaked havoc with the global road racing schedule, with organizations following different strategies. The Tel Aviv Marathon, scheduled for late February, prohibited anyone from flying into the country to run the race. The Paris Marathon, scheduled for April, postponed the event until October, as did the Barcelona Marathon.

More than 455,000 people finished a marathon in the United States in 2019, according to statistics compiled by findmymarathon.com. With races being canceled each week, the number is expected to drop substantially in 2020.