Great North Run forms group to forge future for UK athletics (2024)

The organiser of the Great North Run has formed a partnership with two other organisations to grow athletics in the UK and bring major events to the country.

The Great Run Company will work with London Marathon events and UK Athletics to deliver the 2026 European Athletics Championships in Birmingham and the annual edition of the Diamond League in the UK. There are also hopes that the new body will bid to get the World Athletics Championships to return to the UK in 2029.

The new company - which has been formed at a time when athletics as a sport is facing significant funding issues - will also try to attract new commercial partners for athletics in the UK, offering opportunities from grassroots activities to national events and the UK athletics teams at major championships. UK Athletics suffered a record annual loss of £3.7m in 2023 and has staged a number of loss-making events, but has also seen a number of major successes on the track in recent years, including two gold medals at last year’s World Championships.

The Great Run Company began when former athlete Sir Brendan Foster staged the first Great North Run in 1981. The event is now the most successful half-marathon in the world, and has led to a number of other Great Run events around the UK, as well as the Great North Swim event in Windermere.

Paul Foster, CEO of The Great Run Company, said: “The partnership is driven not only by a belief in the sport of athletics, but also the belief that there is real commercial opportunity. We’re bringing together the best event organisers in our sport to create a new template for international events. We’re combining world class creative, broadcast and event operations with focused commercial and entrepreneurial vision to develop a brighter future for athletics.

“For the first time, major events will be underwritten by commercial organisations, not the public sector. We firmly believe that this model is the future for major events, and that the Birmingham European Championships will be a huge success for Great Britain, on and off the track.”

Former Olympic athletics champion Lord Coe, who is president of World Athletics, said: “This is a very exciting time for our sport. We are attracting viewers in the hundreds of millions for our World Championships and with the Paris Olympics mere months away the interest in athletics will only increase.

“It is innovation and creative partnerships like this joint venture between The Great Run Company and London Marathon Events - with their impressive track record in road running - combined with UKA’s world class athletes, that will keep pushing our sport forward and make it an attractive proposition for fans and commercial partners alike. We applaud this innovative initiative and eagerly look forward to seeing the promising journey ahead.”

Jack Buckner, CEO of UKA, said: “This is a groundbreaking model for the development of athletics and for major sports events in the UK and we believe our new partnership, which combines the national governing body with the expertise of London Marathon Events and The Great Run Company, will transform the future of athletics in this country.

“Athletics is the most watched sport at the Olympic and Paralympic Games and millions in the UK will be watching the Diamond League at the London Stadium and hundreds of millions across the globe will be following the action from the stadium in Paris, putting our sport and our great athletes – such as Molly Caudery, Hannah co*ckroft, Keely Hodgkinson, Matthew Hudson-Smith and Josh Kerr – front of mind. We pledge to build on this huge opportunity to rejuvenate British athletics, working alongside our Home Country partners, to restore our sport to the popularity of the golden days of the 1980s.”

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