Mission Pays off for Dublin as Marathon Faces New Challenge

The 2012 Dublin Marathon was officially launched yesterday, Tuesday 1st May by Team Ireland&London 2012 hopefuls Linda Byrne, Maria McCambridge and Caitriona Jennings.
Byrne was the first Irish woman home in the 2011 Dublin Marathon and the first to achieve the Olympic qualifying time. Jennings was the latest to achieve the time thanks to a great run in the Rotterdam Marathon last month, thus creating a dilemma for the AAI and the OCI with four female runners having secured the qualifying time, but only three available places on Team Ireland for the womens marathon.

“The hard reality is that one of these great athletes will miss out on the Olympics” said Race Director Jim Aughney “They will have to wait until mid June to find out who it is that will miss out, when the decision is made by the AAI and ratified by the OCI. It’s going to be heart breaking for one of them after the effort they have put in to get this far”

All four of the qualified females, Byrne, McCambridge, Jennings and Ava Hutchinson, who is training in the US at present, as well as Mark Kenneally are members of the Marathon Mission team, which was established by Aughney and his fellow Dublin Marathon organisers in association with the AAI two years ago, with the aim of specifically targeting improvements in the standard of long distance running in Ireland.

“We could see the decline in Irish times in the Dublin Marathon course, and decided we needed to do something to address it, and really focus on ensuring we had world class marathon runners again out of Ireland” said Aughney “It’s very gratifying now to see the fruits of that work with five athletes having made the A standard for London. It’s the first time we as a country have ever delivered that”

Aughney faces a new challenge this year, with the Dublin Marathon without a sponsor for the first time since 1992, after they were unable to reach agreement on the terms for the 2012 sponsorship with last years’ sponsors the National Lottery.

“We had a great partnership with the National Lottery last year, and they did a huge amount to help us raise the bar yet again in terms of the professionalism of Dublin, and having live TV for the first time in over twenty years was a real boost as well.”

“As organisers, our task now is to deliver the best possible Dublin Marathon for the runners, joggers and walkers and to continue to grow the event, as we have done for the past 32 years”

Aughney admitted that the lack of a title sponsor will mean they will have to cut back on certain elements this year, so for starters there will be no live television or highlights package this year, but he is adamant that he and his fellow volunteer organisers will ensure that the core elements that make Dublin such a popular marathon will remain in place.

Aughney expects there will be some changes to the route for the 2012 Marathon.

“We are still finalizing the 2012 route with the relevant local authorities and the Gardaí, but there will be some changes to the current route”

Expected to change is the existing route in the Phoenix Park with runners this year only using only the Back Road, Chesterfield Avenue and Wellington Road. The second change if implemented will see the runners cutting out Roebuck Road and Fosters Avenue just after the 20 miles mark.

The route details will be online as soon as they are confirmed