Press Release - London Marathon - 4/30/09

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
                           


      Virgin London Marathon Ballot For 2010 Closes In Record Time

The Virgin London Marathon 2010 entry ballot has been completed after two 
days and 16 hours - beating the previous record by over 15 days. In total, 
over 120,000 runners have been accepted.

After unprecedented demand for places for the 2010 race, the online ballot 
entry was temporarily closed on Monday 27 April to allow the London 
Marathon team to add extra website capacity to meet the overwhelming 
demand.

Race Director David Bedford said: 'After the success of last Sunday's race 
and the beginning of a new dawn with Virgin we were expecting a massive 
response for next year’s race but even we were surprised by such a 
fantastic reaction to the opening of the entry ballot.'

Bedford added: 'As we run a ballot and don’t allocate spaces on a first 
come first served basis, no-one will be disadvantaged because of the 
temporary issue on Monday. We do of course apologise for the inconvenience 
caused and thank people for their patience.'

Jayne-Anne Gadhia, Chief Executive of Virgin Money said, 'We love the fact 
that the London Marathon is both a massive fundraising event and a 
world-famous sporting occasion – it's a national institution. With two 
course records set in the race, the first from Kurt Fearnely in the elite 
men's wheelchair race, and the second from Sammy Wanjiru's in the elite 
men's race, to the thousands of fun runners and fundraisers the London 
Marathon has no comparison. We're really excited about being part of the 
race and plan to help make 2010, the 30th London Marathon and Virgin's 
first, the best yet.'

Virgin Money, the financial services division of the Virgin Group will lead 
the sponsorship with the ambition of supporting the event and the runners 
in their attempts to raise even greater amounts of money for good causes 
across the five-year deal. Virgin hope to encourage runners to raise over 
£¼ billion over the five year term of its sponsorship.

Despite the ballot for places closing in record time there are other ways 
to enter for 2010. People wishing to run for a charity dear to their heart 
may still be able to do so. Many major charities will have a set number of 
entry places in the Virgin London Marathon each year. They will allocate 
these places to runners on the basis that they will raise an agreed amount 
of money for the charity. For more information potential participants 
should visit www.virginlondonmarathon.com/raising-money.

There are usually more runners interested in running for each charity than 
there are charity places available, so the charities will select their 
runners based on the runner's connection with the good cause and how much 
money they are realistically able to raise for the charity.

The 2010 Virgin London Marathon will take place on Sunday 25th April. For 
more information go to: www.virginlondonmarathon.com


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