[Leading Cork to take its place as a World Class City] __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Cork City Marathon With COVID-19 restrictions in place, it was not possible to host the traditional June Bank Holiday Cork City Marathon in 2021. Instead, a virtual marathon, half marathon and relay were organised to allow participants complete their chosen distance any time from March through to the June Bank Holiday weekend. The 2021 Virtual Cork City Marathon successfully ended on Sunday 6 th June, with almost 3,000 participants. Many of the regular runners had completed their marathons, half marathon or relays by the June Bank Holiday Weekend, but some waited for traditional race day to run. Amongst those was the blue wave of the Sanctuary Runners, who took to the roads of Ireland and abroad on the final day of the event. Almost 1,700 Sanctuary Runners in 25 countries took part, making it the most culturally diverse running team ever to have taken part in a marathon. Throughout the day, Twitter was alight with photos of smiling runners from Ireland, Kenya, Dubai, France, Canada, Australia, China, Gibraltar, Wales, South Africa, Sweden and elsewhere having completed #CorkCityMarathon21. Starting at 2am Irish time, when Hirohiko Katayama ran through the grounds of Tokyo’s Imperial Palace, and finishing in San Francisco late into the night, the event attracted extensive media coverage, including a feature on RTE’s 6/1 news. The official Twitter a ccount of the President of Ireland even posted a message of support during the day. The Sanctuary Runners deservedly stole the limelight, but they were not the last runners to finish the Marathon this year. Scoil Bernadette (the COPE Foundation) received special dispensation to finish their relay a week later, with over 120 pupils and teachers completing the marathon they had been running throughout the previous month. They were taking part in the marathon’s Virtual Youth Challenge, organised in associatio n with the Cork Sports Partnership. Thanks to the work of the Cork Sports Partnership, there was a huge response, with almost 4,000 young people, families, youth clubs and over 65 schools taking part county wide.
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