Olympic champion Greg Rutherford: We must save parkrun and we must do it NOW
Greg Rutherford has urged landowners to drop their opposition to parkrun – for the sake of the nation’s health.
More than 200,000 people in England took part each week in the network of free-to-enter 5km runs before the pandemic.
With three million registered, parkrun is recognised as one of Britain’s greatest ever public health initiatives.
Yet its future hangs in the balance as only 221 of the 589 adult events up and down the land have been cleared to resume, despite legal permission being given to do so.
Unless the ‘approved’ rate rises to above 80 per cent by Friday parkrun will be mothballed for an indefinite period.
Olympic long jump champion Rutherford said: “This is a huge concern. The mental health side of people running and staying active is so important and without doubt parkrun is one of the greatest initiatives out there.
(Image: Getty)
“This has been an incredibly challenging time in all our lives, people have really struggled during the pandemic.
“So now that life is slowly starting to return to some sort of normal we must do everything in our power to get people out, socialising and active in a healthy environment.”
As things stand parkrun will not restart on June 5 as planned for fear of the few sanctioned events being vastly over subscribed.
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In London, for example, where there are half a million registered parkrunners and 57 events, only three permissions have been given.
“If we’re all allowed to go and pile into restaurants and pubs again why on earth would we not be allowed to run about outside?” said Rutherford, who will be part of the presentation team for the Eurosport and discovery+ live coverage of the Tokyo Olympic Games. “It makes no sense to me.
“I get it that we need to get the economy moving, we need to get people out spending money again, but we also need to make sure everyone is as mentally fit and healthy as possible.
(Image: BrucieBaby (Bruce Li))
“parkrun is a massive aid to that and central government needs to prioritise things like this to make sure that at local council level everything is in place and there’s a strategy for things like that.”
In a letter to members of parliament Conservative MP David Davis complained that a “significant number of landowners are putting unacceptable and potentially unlawful barriers in the way of parkrun returning”.
And he added: “Personally, I would consider it a national embarrassment if we allow this situation to stop the return of public health initiatives like parkrun.”
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