Brighton Marathon organisers 'confident' 2023 event will go ahead

Grounded Events faced criticism after it emerged that winners of April's marathon had not received prize money

Brighton Marathon organisers are "extremely confident" next year's event will go ahead despite financial difficulties.

Grounded Events faced criticism after it emerged that winners of April's marathon have not received prize money.

They said the pandemic had a lasting financial impact, with rising costs and a drop in entrants making it harder to recover.

This year's race winner said his memory of the event had been "tainted".

Suppliers are also still awaiting payment.

Grounded Events co-director Tom Naylor said: "We thought 2023 would be almost normal and have been promising people payment, but because the forecasts haven't matched reality, it's put us in the position where we're upsetting people, which we're extremely disappointed about."

Grounded Events co-director Tom Naylor said the pandemic has had a lasting financial impact

The company weren't able to say when people owed money would be paid, adding: "Everyone is struggling and everyone is finding things difficult and we're constantly working with people who owe us money in order for us to pay people we owe money."

Alix Ramsier won this year's race, which he said was one of the best moments of his life, though he has not been paid the promised £2,000.

"I don't run for money but they encourage better runners to turn up, and they don't pay those runners. It's scandalous really," he said.

"It's concerning for an event as big as Brighton. They've got a lot of work to do to regain the trust of the running community."

Alex Ramsier won the 2022 race in a time of 2:29:07

Mr Naylor said: "The industry is starting to recover, and as a sector, we're starting to realise the situation we're in and are looking at all options to ensure the 2023 event happens, that's the critical thing."

The marathon saw its highest number of entrants in 2017, when 12,700 runners took part.

That fell to 7,500 in September 2021 - the first race since the pandemic.

It recovered to 8,500 in April.

Mr Naylor, who also chairs the Mass Sporting Organisations group - which includes Parkrun and London Marathon Events - said falling entrant numbers had affected the entire industry.

"We've come back and we're holding events which are more expensive - cost of fuel, cost of people - and we're seeing a significant fall in participation, and none of us thought this would be the case after participation in running during lockdown was at an all-time high."

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