The organisers of the London Marathon will now run the Bath Half Marathon, too
London Marathon Events (LME) – the company responsible for world-famous races including the London Marathon and The Big Half – has today been announced as the new organiser of the Bath Half Marathon.
After 25 years organising the race, race directors Andrew and Mel Taylor will pull the plug and step down from their roles following the 2024 event on 17 March. LME will then take the reins to deliver the event from 2025.
Guided by its vision of 'Inspiring Activity', LME hopes to grow the Bath Half Marathon and encourage people in local communities to embrace exercise and lead healthier, more active lives.
Hugh Brasher, event director at LME, spoke highly of the Bath Half Marathon – the newest addition to LME’s portfolio.
'The Bath Half is a wonderful event in a beautiful setting,' says Brasher. 'We look forward to working with Bath and North East Somerset Council to grow the event over the next five years and inspire activity in local communities and schools. I’d like to pay tribute to the work of Andrew and Mel Taylor for developing the event over the past 25 years.'
Andrew Taylor, too, has shared his thoughts on passing the Bath baton to LME after a quarter of a century in charge.
'Mel and I have been honoured to have organised the Bath Half for the last 25 years and we’re proud to have built a platform enabling charities to raise over £30 million since we took over management of the event in 2000,' says Taylor. 'Now is the right time for us to step down and we’re delighted that London Marathon Events will be taking the event forward. We’d like to thank our team, race entrants, charity and corporate partners, contractors, volunteers, council staff and councillors, and above all the community of Bath for their longstanding support for this much-loved event.'
The news of this takeover arrives less than two months before the 2024 edition of the London Marathon – LME’s flagship event and one of the six Abbott World Marathon Majors. Tracing an iconic route from Greenwich to The Mall, the London Marathon continues to grow as one of the most popular 26.2-mile events on the planet, having welcomed over 49,000 participants to its start line in 2023.
What’s more, well over 578,000 people were reported to have entered the ballot for the 2024 London Marathon on 21 April, making it the first marathon in history to have received more than half a million ballot applications.
The Bath takeover also extends LME’s reach outside of London, with the company having taken ownership of the annual Brighton Marathon Weekend from 2023. The 2024 Brighton Marathon Weekend, which will be held on the south coast from 6-7 April, will comprise a marathon, a 10K and a free Brighton Miles event.
The beauty of Bath
First held in 1982, the Bath Half Marathon is already the largest sporting and community event in the city of Bath and the biggest charity fundraising event in South West England. Attracting fun runners through to high-performing club runners and elites, it is also one of the UK’s most hotly entered and best-supported 13.1 miles races, having attracted around 10,000 runners and 20,000 spectators in 2023 alone.
That said, the Bath Half Marathon has experienced some instability in recent years. Following a half-capacity event in March 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic forced a full cancellation of the race in 2021, before the event returned in 2022 and 2023 on new dates in October. Before that, in 2018, the event was also cancelled due to snow.
Although my own hopes of running the 2018 Bath Half Marathon were dampened due to the aforementioned inclement conditions, I finally managed to have a go at this race in 2022.
Friendly, flat and fast (despite an almost farcically positioned uphill at the very end), this road race is a dream for both first-time half marathoners and more tunnel-visioned runners hunting a personal best. I fell into the latter category on this occasion (and, thankfully, did manage to catch my PB prey) – but I still had more fun than I imagined while trying to run full pelt. The route takes in the stunning Georgian architecture of the city, the River Avon and the surrounding countryside, so it seemed too rude for me to keep my head down the whole way, especially since the thousands of supporters were so lively and fulsome. (I’d also never known such a rich offering of portaloos in a race village – so if you suffer pre-race butterflies in Bath, you’ll be fine.)
In short? I would recommend this race – and I look forward to seeing how it develops under LME's tenure.
Entries for the 2025 Bath Half Marathon, scheduled for 16 March, will open on 17 March 2024, the day of this year’s race.
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