A Father’s Day ‘half’ empty – 300 left disappointed

Organisers have pushed this year’s rendition of the annual 13.1 miler back from its initial 21 June date to instead take place on 6 September.

This significant but ultimately rather unsurprising decision, given the plethora of postponements striking domestic, national and world sport, comes one month after organisers opted to suspend new entries for the event.

The ‘Father’s Day Half’ attracts a large and primarily local field, with the last two editions selling out all 800 available entries before race day.

Luton AC transfer Ryan Burling had dominated both the 2018 and 2019 races but has since moved to London, freeing up space for a new winner when and if the event goes ahead this year.

The 2020 edition looked to continue the mass-participation trend and had already filled around 300 places within three weeks of opening up entries.

Guernsey Athletics endurance director Louise Perrio admitted that organising such an event is ‘no small undertaking’.

‘The island is in a very positive place in light of the current situation but as everyone understands, relaxing the restrictions is going to be a very gradual process, and rightly so, with an as-yet-unknown timeline,’ she said.

‘Co-ordinating and carrying out all the background work and tasks for putting together such an event would be at best extremely difficult in the circumstances under which we are all now operating, even if it were possible to have a mass gathering in six weeks’ time, which is unlikely to be the case given social distancing.

‘Setting a postponed date now allows everyone to have something more concrete to work towards – both athletes and organisers.’

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