Cork City Marathon issue statement regarding the water shortages at the 2023 event

After the 2023 Cork City Marathon event, there were a lot of complaints about the lack of water out on the course and at the finish line. This seems to have been a major issue especially for runners in the later stages of the half-marathon and marathon race.

You can see that there were plenty of reports of water shortages in the comments section of the results post on this blog... https://corkrunning.blogspot.com/2023/06/results-photos-of-cork-city-marathon.html

Here's a few of the comments...

a) To the organizers- to come across 3 water stations that had been cleaned out on a scorching day when people were struggling - well. an embarrassment. Is it really a lot to expect- forecast was nailed down all week- to have sufficient water available at the stations? When you’re accepting entries right up until the day before you lose all mitigating circumstance excuses.

b) Multiple water stations run dry was inexcusable. Especially given the ticket prices. Proper hydration and cooling had never been more important and the organizers let the runners down badly there. I counted 3 stations without water, and not a drop to be had at the finish line either when I got there after the half. Water supply during the race needs to be guaranteed. It's not optional.

c) It was ridiculous on such a hot day that a lot of water stations were cleaned out and we were struggling with the heat. The price it cost for me to do this run and not even water en route wasn’t good enough.

After the event, the organisers didn't address the water fiasco once on their various social media channels. Finally after a month of silence, they issued this statement...

Some have described this response to me as 'passing the buck' and throwing the Defence Forces 'under the bus'. The ultimate responsibility lies with Cork City Council and Davis Events Agency who the Council had contracted to organise the event.

No excuse... Organising something like the Cork City Marathon is a huge undertaking and its complexity shouldn't be underestimated. It's not easy holding a full marathon, a half marathon and a 10k with thousands of runners on the streets of a busy city.

Any experienced race organiser will know that mistakes are made every year. In the first year, you hope nothing major goes wrong, you do a review just after the event and then you try to make sure that the first year mistakes don't happen again. It continues like this year after year, it should be a process of continuous improvement and the mistakes should hopefully get smaller and smaller. 

The current form of the Cork City Marathon has been going since 2007. They should be masters of water distribution at this stage, there really is no excuse.

Questions... Some serious question need to be asked about Cork City Council and Davis Events Agency.

a) What happened to all that knowledge and experience of distributing the water to the various points out along the course? Was the organisation of the water distribution handed over to someone else with the assumption that they knew how to do it?

b) Why wasn't there water for some runners at the finish line?!?! This is a given. It's farcical that runners have to queue up in a shop to buy water when there should be plenty at the finish.

c) Why weren't the entries closed or capped say two weeks before the event so that they had a reasonable idea of many runners might take part? They were taking entries up to midnight on the 1st of June.

d) At the end of the day, is it really all just about the money?

My own observations... This is my own very limited snapshot of what happened out on the course. 

10k - 3.5km mark.... I was taking photos of the 10k at the end of Mardyke, There was plenty of water packed away in plastic wrapping and the table hadn't been set up yet. It seemed to me as if the water was for the half-marathon and marathon runners that were going to arrive later.

After about half of the field of 10k runners had passed, someone went over to the pile of water bottles, broke the plastic wrapping and took one. After that, it was a bit like throwing bread crumbs out to a load of crows as the 10k runners tore into the pile.

I wouldn't blame the 10k runners for taking the water, it was a warm morning and the water was just there next to the course. Some people might question whether there should be multiple water stations for a 10k race but for a lot of these runners, they might have been at their limit to complete this distance.

It was obvious when I was there that this wasn't supposed to be a water station for the 10k runners and I was wondering at the time if there would be a shortage of water here for the half and full marathon runners later?

Marathon - Turners Cross... On the way home, I passed though Ballyphehane and Turners Cross. At this stage, it was just slower marathon runners out on the course and it seemed like a lonely affair for them without the relay runners this year. 

I saw one marathon runner approach the 'water station' just before the Tramore Road only to see that the table was gone. There were loads of council workers there cleaning up discarded water bottles from the road. It was like the event was already over even though some runners hadn't even passed yet.

In conclusion... If you ran the half or full marathon in Cork this year or even the 10k then you may not have seen any problems, you might be wondering what the fuss is about. 

For the slower runners though, it was a fiasco. One of the big problems with the Cork Marathon is that it is held in the middle of the Summer which is not a good time of year for running marathons or half-marathon due to the heat.

There's no point in the organisers banging on about flat fast courses if people think that they won't get water after paying commercial entry fees.