Top Cork BHAA races in 2025

The chart above shows the number of finishers for each of the Cork BHAA races in 2025. The John Buckley Sports 5k was the top Cork BHAA race for the year, up about 18% on 2024.

The PwC 5k put in another strong showing to take the second spot while the Gas Networks Ireland 5k finished in third. The races tail away after that and the only one that was particularly low was the ESB cross country race.

Stats... Let's have a look to see what the trends are. First off, let's compare the races that were common to both 2024 and 2025...

There were 17 races which were common to both years. The numbers for eight of them were up, eight were down and one stayed the same. This stat alone already suggests that there was no growth in 2025.

Let's look at the average number of finishers per Cork BHAA race since 2015 and we get this chart...

Note the chart starts at 300

After 2015, the average number dropped for three years before recovering in 2019. Post pandemic, the 2022 numbers were well down like a lot of other races. It then showed strong growth in 2023 and 2024 to recover. 2025 was down a bit on 2024, not a huge amount but a drop all the same.

Looking ahead... It seems like the post pandemic recovery is well and truly over and it seems likely that the numbers for 2026 will be about the same again if not a little reduced.

The big advantage that the BHAA have is that their races are only €5 for registered runners and €10 for non-reg. Every year that goes by, the BHAA races look like better value when compared to club races where the entry fees are gradually creeping upwards.