London, Jun 15: The 2020 Great North Run has been canceled due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, confirmed the organizers of the annual half-marathon event on Monday.
The Great North Run had planned to celebrate its 40th staging with the largest ever number of 60,000 places available to runners this year. The event was scheduled to be held on September 13 but postponed to September 12 in 2021.
The organizers said that they have worked hard to try and find a way to run the Great North Run in a way which both observes social distancing rules and doesn’t impact the local National Health Service. They have also looked at holding the event later in the year.
“But, as things stand, and even as the situation improves, it isn’t going to be possible to meet these goals with any certainty, and so, with just under three months to go we have concluded that the best course of action is to cancel,” read a statement released on Monday.
Elite sport events have been allowed to resume behind closed doors in Britain since June 1. Snooker, horse racing and a few other sports have restarted their seasons.
The Premier League has set June 17 as a provisional date for resuming the 2019-20 season, after all elite football games in England were suspended on March 13 due to the COVID-19 outbreak. (Xinhua)
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