One of the big road races this week in Ireland was the Grant Thornton 5k in Dublin on Tues 26th Sept with 3,011 runners crossing the finish line. It can be interesting to look at big races like this and see what the national trends might be.
As can be seen from the graphic above, there was some recovery in numbers in 2023 compared to a big drop in 2022. The Grant Thornton 5k race in Cork shows a similar pattern in that the numbers were much higher in the years before 2020 with a big drop in 2022 and then a modest recovery in 2023.
The Dublin numbers for 2023 are down 29% on the figure for 2019 while Cork shows a very similar pattern with a 30% drop for the same 2023 to 2019 comparison.
It also follows the pattern for a lot of road races i.e. numbers in 2023 were better than 2022 but not back to where they used to be.
The big question now is if the bigger race numbers will return over the next year or two or are the numbers for 2023 the new norm? With race entry fees rising, I suspect it'll be the latter.
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