Virgin London Marathon ballot for 2010 closes in record time

Ballot closed after two days and 16 hours, beating previous record by 15 days

Virgin London Marathon Press Release
April 30, 2009

The Virgin London Marathon 2010 entry ballot has been completed after two days and 16 hours - beating the previous record by over 15 days. In total, over 120,000 runners have been accepted.

After unprecedented demand for places for the 2010 race, the online ballot entry was temporarily closed on Monday 27 April to allow the London Marathon team to add extra website capacity to meet the overwhelming demand.

Race Director David Bedford said: ‘After the success of last Sunday’s race and the beginning of a new dawn with Virgin we were expecting a massive response for next year’s race but even we were surprised by such a fantastic reaction to the opening of the entry ballot.’

Bedford added: ‘As we run a ballot and don’t allocate spaces on a first come first served basis, no-one will be disadvantaged because of the temporary issue on Monday. We do of course apologise for the inconvenience caused and thank people for their patience.’

Jayne-Anne Gadhia, Chief Executive of Virgin Money said, ‘We love the fact that the London Marathon is both a massive fundraising event and a world-famous sporting occasion – it’s a national institution. With two course records set in the race, the first from Kurt Fearnely in the elite men’s wheelchair race, and the second from Sammy Wanjiru’s in the elite men’s race, to the thousands of fun runners and fundraisers the London Marathon has no comparison. We’re really excited about being part of the race and plan to help make 2010, the 30th London Marathon and Virgin’s first, the best yet.’

Virgin Money, the financial services division of the Virgin Group will lead the sponsorship with the ambition of supporting the event and the runners in their attempts to raise even greater amounts of money for good causes across the five-year deal. Virgin hope to encourage runners to raise over £¼ billion over the five year term of its sponsorship.¹

Despite the ballot for places closing in record time there are other ways to enter for 2010. People wishing to run for a charity dear to their heart may still be able to do so. Many major charities will have a set number of entry places in the Virgin London Marathon each year. They will allocate these places to runners on the basis that they will raise an agreed amount of money for the charity. For more information potential participants should visit www.virginlondonmarathon.com/raising-money.

There are usually more runners interested in running for each charity than there are charity places available, so the charities will select their runners based on the runner's connection with the good cause and how much money they are realistically able to raise for the charity.

The 2010 Virgin London Marathon will take place on Sunday 25^th April.  For more information go to: www.virginlondonmarathon.com