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Rescheduled Paris marathon and half marathon cancelled

The 2020 Paris marathon - rescheduled for October after the first event was cancelled - has now been scrapped entirely, organisers have confirmed.

Published: 12 August 2020 11:38 CEST

Rescheduled Paris marathon and half marathon cancelled

There will be no Paris marathon in 2020. Photo: AFP

The Paris half marathon was originally set to be run on March 1st but was cancelled at the last minute after all gatherings of more than 5,000 people were banned as the Covid-19 epidemic began to make itself felt in France.

The marathon was scheduled for April, but by then the country was on strict lockdown.

It was rescheduled for an autumn date, first October 18th and then November 15th, but on Wednesday organisers announced they were scrapping the 2020 event altogether to focus on the 2021 race.

“Faced with the impossibility for many participants to make themselves available and especially those many, coming from foreign countries and encountering travel difficulties, it was decided to give priority to the race in 2021,” the organisers of the marathon said in a press release.

“Alongside the City of Paris, we will do our utmost to offer you a next edition even more beautiful, worthy of the reunion of all enthusiasts with the streets of the most beautiful city in the world,” they added.

The half marathon, rescheduled for October, has also been cancelled.

Member comments

Anonymous - 12 August 2020 at 12:36 CEST

What about scrapping “The Tour” for this year then.

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Olympic torch sets sail at start of its voyage to France

“The feelings are so exceptional. It’s such an emotion for me”, Tony Estanguet, Paris Olympics chief organiser, told reporters before the departure of the ship from Piraeus.

He hailed the “great coincidence” how the Belem was launched just weeks after the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896.

“These games mean a lot. It’s been a centenary since the last time we organised the Olympic games in our country,” he added.

The 19th-century three-masted boat set sail on a calm sea but under cloudy skies.

It was accompanied off the port of Piraeus by the trireme Olympias of the Greek Navy and 25 sailing boats while dozens of people watched behind railings for security reasons.

“We came here so that the children understand that the Olympic ideal was born in Greece. I’m really moved,” Giorgos Kontopoulos, who watched the ship starting its voyage with his two children, told AFP.

On Sunday, the ship will pass from the Corinth Canal — a feat of 19th century engineering constructed with the contribution of French banks and engineers.

‘More responsible Games’

The Belem is set to reach Marseille — where a Greek colony was founded in around 600 BCE — on May 8.

Over 1,000 vessels will accompany its approach to the harbour, local officials have said.

French swimmer Florent Manaudou will be the first torch bearer in Marseille. His sister Laure was the second torch bearer in ancient Olympia, where the flame was lit on April 16.

Ten thousand torchbearers will then carry the flame across 64 French territories.

It will travel through more than 450 towns and cities, and dozens of tourist attractions during its 12,000-kilometre (7,500-mile) journey through mainland France and overseas French territories in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Pacific.

It will then reach Paris and be the centre piece of the hugely imaginative and new approach to the Games opening ceremony.

Instead of the traditional approach of parading through the athletics stadium at the start of the Games, teams are set to sail down the Seine on a flotilla of boats in front of up to 500,000 spectators, including people watching from nearby buildings.

The torch harks back to the ancient Olympics when a sacred flame burned throughout the Games. The tradition was revived in 1936 for the Berlin Games.

Greece on Friday had handed over the Olympic flame of the 2024 Games, at a ceremony, to Estanguet.

Hellenic Olympic Committee chairman Spyros Capralos handed the torch to Estanguet at the Panathenaic Stadium, where the Olympics were held in 1896.

Estanguet said the goal for Paris was to organise “spectacular but also more responsible Games, which will contribute towards a more inclusive society.”

Organisers want to ensure “the biggest event in the world plays an accelerating role in addressing the crucial questions of our time,” said Estanguet, a member of France’s Athens 2004 Olympics team who won gold in the slalom canoe event.

A duo of French champions, Beijing 2022 ice dance gold medallist Gabriella Papadakis and former swimmer Beatrice Hess, one of the most successful Paralympians in history, carried the flame during the final relay leg into the Panathenaic Stadium.

Nana Mouskouri, the 89-year-old Greek singer with a worldwide following, sang the French and Greek anthems at the ceremony.

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