London Marathon’s head of elite athletes Spencer Barden tells Jessica Whittington what it has taken to get The 40th Race on the road

Putting together one world-class London Marathon field in a year is impressive enough but to manage it twice, the second amid a pandemic, is quite some feat.

The iconic event might look very different this year but it has still attracted some of the sport’s biggest stars, with many measures having been put in place to ensure that the series of elite-only races can be held safely and successfully.

From the rewriting of contracts through to race week in a biosecure bubble, head of elite athletes Spencer Barden has shared some insight into just what it takes to create an event of this calibre in the current climate.

Starting from scratch

“Normally we’re working almost a year in advance,” explains Barden as he talks through the elite athlete process. “After each year’s race you are already looking to have conversations with athletes and managers about confirming them for the following year.

“We’re always very keen to at least have the top three athletes back in the field for the following year. Obviously this year was slightly different. The athletes, with their managers, were informed that the race was going to be postponed (from its original April date) and that communication went to them pretty much at the same time that it was communicated out to the general public.

“Then there were a lot of conversations over those few weeks to reconfirm the field and redo contracts for all the athletes,” adds the former GB international. “That process took the best part of two to three months to finalise because at the same time there was still other marathons already in the calendar.

“We have always wanted to have the world’s best field, and that includes the depth of the field. We always want to support the British athletes as best we can as well. Hence we have various pace groups through the field.”

READ MORE: Men’s race contenders

READ MORE: Women’s race contenders

While the men’s race may have lost Kenenisa Bekele through injury, cancelling his highly-anticipated clash with Eliud Kipchoge, there is certainly still great depth in both the elite men’s and women’s fields, which are led by world record-holders Kipchoge and Brigid Kosgei.

The overall prize fund has been cut by almost half, but a British prize pot has been introduced and organisers have set a series of pace groups including one in each race to help athletes towards achieving the qualifying time for next year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo.

“We worked closely with World Athletics and the member federations to invite athletes who needed the qualification standard for Tokyo to London this year, that was one of the agreements with World Athletics,” says Barden. “So we have opened the field up a bit and we have a number of athletes, primarily from European federations, that will compete in London, looking to gain qualification times.

“That was why we focused on, in both the men’s and women’s races, qualification groups with some high-quality pacemakers.”

That includes Britain’s 10-time global gold medallist Mo Farah in the men’s race as he paces the 2:11:30 target group.

“It’s great for the marathon when you have someone like Mo wanting to be part of that,” says Barden, with Farah having completed the full marathon three times in the UK capital, his 2:05:39 last year placing him fifth.

“It’s not about money at all, it is just about Mo, there are not many races around, at the end of the day he is in great shape as we know after that world record for the one-hour and he looked really good in Antrim so he is obviously in good shape. When you’re training hard like he is, you need to do some races, so for Mo, running 65:15, 65:30 pace through halfway is not going to be too much of a challenge for him. We haven’t agreed how far Mo will go, all I know is that he will certainly go at least to halfway.

“Certainly there he can really help the British athletes and we know Mo is a master of pace, so for those athletes in that pace group it is a huge advantage for them to have somebody of Mo’s stature and quality to help them out.”

An event blueprint

With a great deal of work having gone in to organising the event, Barden believes it could be a blueprint for the future, but is hopeful that things can return to normal again soon.

“I think it’s not sustainable year on year to have an elite-only race because obviously that’s not what the marathon is all about,” he says. “It’s not just about the elites – it’s about the masses as well and the huge amount of money raised for charities and the human interest and the stories around that. In the current climate of where we are now, this is the only format really we can deliver.

“So I think it almost is a blueprint, to say that it can be done, this is the way it can be done. We saw in the Czech Republic, they had the half-marathon there which again was a multi-looped course in a similar type of format as we have got here in London.

“So it shows yes, it can be done, but obviously this is certainly not what we want to do every year because it is not possible and not sustainable and obviously there is a much bigger picture to London Marathon and marathons around the world.”