Kew Gardens occasion might be used as a template for future Olympic choice races, says Tom Bedford
The British Olympic marathon trials at Kew Gardens in south-west London on March 26 was the first standalone choice occasion since Milton Keynes in 1980. Yet race director Tom Bedford believes its profitable formulation can be utilized for future trials with trials races held the day earlier than the London Marathon itself.
Since the beginning of the London Marathon in 1981, British choice races have been staged as a ‘race inside a race’ throughout the mass 26.2-mile occasion on Sunday in the British capital. However, the coronavirus pandemic led to the London Marathon in each April final 12 months and this 12 months being postponed, main to the creation of an Olympic trials race for marathon runners and race walkers at Kew Gardens final month.
Despite small fields and much from preferrred climate, it labored too with entertaining races and performances reminiscent of Chris Thompson’s inspirational victory in the males’s marathon.
Now, Bedford believes London Marathon has the probability to stage future trials on London Marathon weekend however probably on the Saturday as a standalone races earlier than the mass participation occasion on Sunday.
“I personally assume London ought to take this on,” says Bedford. “And I’m already developing with concepts relating to what London did in October round St James’s Park.
“It wants just a few extra beer tents, for certain. And let’s interbreed a little bit of the Night of the 10,000m PBs with a little bit of London Marathon class.”
Tom Bedford at Kew Gardens (Mark Shearman)
He provides: “I’ll definitely be sending an electronic mail to the London Marathon race director Hugh Brasher. I’m fairly certain all of them noticed it (the trials) and it’s not the biggest brainchild in the world. But and not using a shadow of a doubt in three years’ time – as a result of it’s solely going to be three years till the subsequent Olympics – they may do on the Saturday.
“You’ve received the infrastructure there with the grandstands for the occasion for the principal occasion the subsequent day. I believe it could have nearly a pleasant kind of Great North Run and CityGames really feel to it too as it could act as a prelude to the subsequent day.”
Bedford continues: “I believe you may make it a ticketed occasion with perhaps cash going to the runners themselves. London is now the true religious residence of the British trials. So this is about passing on one thing that I believe has handed the style check to see what they will give you.
“Due to Covid we had been ready to see what a GB Olympic trial occasion would appear like on British soil,” he provides. “Obviously, this is the norm in America – and there are numerous causes for that – however usually the US trials go round to completely different occasions in the US. And naturally they generally occur the day earlier than the New York Marathon, or Houston, or Atlanta.”
Bedford believes the elite athletes who did the standalone trials at Kew Gardens obtained good protection for themselves and their sponsors due to being in the highlight greater than standard. “The British followers I spoke to received one thing out of it,” Bedford provides. “It was a chance to, you already know, actually see the true British expertise.”
On the marathon trials and Night of the 10,000m PBs, Bedford says: “We’ve turned so-called boring distance operating British occasions and really given them a spotlight.
“The trials has additionally given the athletes some publicity, which generally does go lacking with London Marathon. And that is not London Marathon’s fault. It’s simply because they’re so good internationally.
“But there is perhaps a way of actually giving a little bit of TLC to the British athletes and to construct them up and to inform their story. Distance operating is all about telling a narrative.”
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