In a blog post last week, I reported on how Athletics Ireland were facing a legal challenge on their new 'One Day Licence' which costs €2. The challenge as far as I know has more to do with their use of one company for online entries... i.e. eventmaster ...rather than the concept of a one-day licence itself.
The legal challenge generated some discussion and it seems that there is also some disquiet within the cycling community about Cycling Ireland about their similar one-day licence.
Their one-day licence primarily covers non-club cyclists in what they term 'Leisure Road' events. This might be the likes of say a 50km or 100km looped cycle on public roads. I had seen this before at the end of last year and I noticed that the Cycling Ireland 'One Day Licence' fee was €10.
I guess cycling at speed might be considered more dangerous than say running a 5k road race and I presume this would account for why this is more expensive than the Athletics Ireland €2 fee. There also seems to be a lot fewer of these cycling events in any one area so it's not like the running scene in Cork where there's a race nearly every week.
After last weeks post, it was reported that the Cycling Ireland one-Day Licence fee had doubled in February of 2023 from €10 to €20!
"The cost of a One Day Licence (Event Licence) for non-members of Cycling Ireland is set to increase to €20/£18. The change comes into effect from the 1st of February 2023." - Post on Cycling Ireland website HERE
That raises this obvious question...
Q. Is Cycling Ireland can double their One-Day Licence fee, what's to stop Athletics Ireland doubling theirs?
Is the €2 fee the thin end of the wedge? How long before it increases to €3? Or doubles to €4 because of 'inflation'?
On one side, we have free 5k parkruns and BHAA races costing €5/€10 to enter and on other side, we have club races with entry fees heading ever upwards. The gap between them is continuing to widen. In the long term, it's hard to see all of the athletic club races surviving.
In time I'd say you'll see a charge for park runs. One of the running bodies, AAI or Cork Sports Partnership (I think) had an online survey recently and one of the questions was asking do people think there should be a charge for parkrun! Nailing their colours and intentions to the mast there Id say! On increases, there's absolutely nothing to stop that happening but don't mention cycling ireland too loudly, AAI may start to get ideas!!!!
ReplyDeleteThere will never be a charge for parkrun, it'll die before that happens.
ReplyDeleteParkrun charges were tried once by an event in Scotland I think and there was uproar. I would say it's extremely unlikely to happen.
ReplyDeleteAAI would be better off getting race results correct. Big error on individual medalist list results issued today for the National 10k Championship.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget the great value IMRA races...some costing as little as 7EURO (plus a 10 EUR annual membership)
ReplyDelete