It’s been an emotional roller-coaster ride of a Sunday for both the organisers and the 24,000 runners of the cancelled 2025 Sanlam Cape Town Marathon.
With thousands of runners lined up this morning, getting ready to show off months of hard training, the news broke that the 2025 edition of the race had to be cancelled due to severe winds.
The organisers say the winds were so bad the night before that they damaged race infrastructure and part of the route.
The decision to cancel was made at 4:45 am, just 90 minutes before the scheduled 6:15 start, after emergency meetings between race organisers and the Joint Operations Committee (JOC).
The JOC includes representatives from the City of Cape Town’s Disaster Risk Management, Safety and Security departments, medical services, and the South African Police Service.
Both the route and the start/finish area were declared unsafe for runners and spectators.
The backlash on social media was swift, despite profuse apologies from Marathon CEO Clark Gardner.
Calls grew louder for organisers to reimburse runners, after it was made clear there would be no refunds.
A few hours later, organisers announced that Sanlam had come forward to offer sponsorship for race entries for all 2025 participants in either the 2026 or 2027 editions of the event.
For those who spent thousands of rand to fly to Cape Town and book accommodation, this is perhaps not a viable option to fork out thousands more for the next iteration of the race.
It is also unclear how the organisers will handle capacity constraints, should a large proportion of 2025 entrants take Sanlam up on its offer.
Organisers have asked runners to be patient while the details of the sponsored entry process are finalised. The next Sanlam Cape Town Marathon is scheduled for 24 May 2026.
Meanwhile, the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon’s candidacy to become part of the prestigious Abbott World Marathon Majors series, alongside New York, Boston, Berlin, Chicago, Tokyo, Sydney and London, has been set back.
The race was set to pursue its second consecutive successful evaluation in its bid to become a Major.
In a statement, Abbott World Marathon Major CEO Dawna Stone said:
“We were excited to see all the progress the team in Cape Town had made this year after passing their evaluation in 2024. Our hearts go out to the organisers, volunteers and participants who wanted to make this a historic day, and appreciate what a difficult decision this must have been.”
Despite the unfortunate turn of events, many runners decided to make the best of it and have a little run anyway.
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