“For athletes that has to be a D-day,” said Aughney. “To be fair to the runner and to ourselves you need that four-month lead-in. By the 25th (of June) we’ll be able to say whether the event is on and we’ll have X or Y participants.” 

Aughney admitted “vaccination is key” for the successful staging of the event but he has little idea what size field might be possible on 24 October.

“The chances of 25,000 being allowed to run in the streets of Dublin might be slim but we’d be delighted with any number,” he said. 

“With any of these events you’re going to be restricted to smaller numbers, if we can get 10,000, 15,000, it’d be great news for the city, for the runners.” 

Aughney expects to run a test event in the summer to demonstrate to “the HSE, the government, and whoever needs to see” the mechanisms that will allow the event to held safely. 

“We have to make sure everyone has passed a test to run the event,” he said.

The race organisation has taken a huge financial hit due to its cancellation in 2020 and while the entry fee has remained the same – with last year’s entries carried forward – Aughney acknowledges it will be significantly more expensive to host. 

Through Athletics Ireland, the race applied for financial assistance to Sport Ireland to alleviate the costs but “it didn’t go anywhere,” said Aughney. “We didn’t get any funding from Sport Ireland or any of the other authorities that give out funding.” 

With competition at a standstill across the country, 2013 Dublin Marathon champion Seán Hehir called on Athletics Ireland to give runners “something to look forward to” by creating a road map for the return of competition.

“Events aren’t being facilitated domestically and it’s resulting in Irish athletes having to race abroad,” he said. 

It’s been a very frustrating time and there’s a possibility a generation of athletes are losing out. Can we see a roadmap?

“The Irish athletics community is grounded in volunteers but we have professionals in the organisation who are tasked with the responsibility of getting events on and (we need) a road map in terms of that can be enabled. Let us know what’s in the pipeline, let us know there’s light at the end of the tunnel.” 

Hehir was one of many Irish athletes in discussion with Athletics Ireland about staging an elite-only race in recent months to allow athletes a chance to secure qualifying times for the Olympic marathon on home soil, but with such plans rejected, he and others were forced to travel to England to race the Cheshire Elite Marathon.

“That’s frustrating,” he said. “A trial event could have been facilitated (but) it was shot down. There are sports rolling up their sleeves and being proactive. Let’s see the same for Irish athletes and give them something to look forward to. If you can have 30 guys knocking lumps out of each other on a pitch, why can’t you have 15 athletes on a track?” 

- Jim Aughney and Seán Hehir were speaking at the launch of the 2021 KBC Virtual Dublin Marathon and Race Series with distances of 4 Mile, 10km, 10 Mile, and Half marathon available. Entries are now open on kbcdublinmarathon.ie. Runners who have secured a place for the KBC Dublin Marathon race event on Sunday, October 24, will receive confirmation by Friday, June 25, on whether the event can go ahead.