Coventry Half Marathon date put back to March...

[dutchman]

The Coventry half marathon will not be held this year after the event was put back to March.


Runners line up for the start of last year's Half Marathon.

City council bosses said the annual run, held in October for the last two years, had been moved to avoid pressures within the busy autumn schedule and 'enable new innovations' to be developed.

But they admitted a deal with a new race partner - charged with hosting the event - had not yet been formalised after a two-year deal with organisers Big Q expired last year.

The firm encountered teething problems at the event back in 2011, with one boss telling the Observer after the event that the agreement was unlikely to be renewed at the end of the deal.

An announcement on who will host the event is expected in the coming weeks but a date of Sunday, March 23 has been set.

Roland Harrison, sports and development manager at the council, said: "We are very aware that many people have been asking for the date for the event so they can plan their event and training programmes for the year.

"Therefore we have taken the decision to get the date out there for existing runners and new entrants so hopefully this will help everyone concerned by confirming this date.

"We’d like to thank all our loyal runners, volunteers and race partners for their continuing interest and understanding over this delay in the date announcement; however we are very confident the city will have an event which will be a high profile, quality event for early 2014."

The event has attracted up to 2,000 people in recent years for a 13.1-mile journey around Coventry, starting and finishing within the city centre.