Hamilton’s Around the Bay Race will be a virtual event in 2021

After a year that saw Hamilton’s famous Around the Bay Race cancelled due to COVID-19, the massive event will be pivoting to a virtual format in its forthcoming 2021 year.

Despite promising news of a COVID-19 vaccine finally landing in Canada – with some initial doses dropping into the country as soon as next week, pending Health Canada approval – it isn’t likely that an in-person event with the mammoth draw of the Around the Bay Race would be able to go ahead as usual in 2021.

Bay Race going virtual for 2021! https://t.co/gvP5crQVJx

— Bay Race 30k (@bayracerun) December 9, 2020

So, rather than risk having to do the intense work of rescheduling a planned in-person race going into an unknowable 2021, the organizers of the race have opted to play it safe and go virtual next year, with plan of returning full force again in 2022.

For next year’s event, the Around the Bay Race has gotten creative by allowing participants to complete their 30 kilometres any time between March 25th and April 25th and enter their time online afterwards.

The Around the Bay Race is the oldest long distance road race in all of North America, running annually in Hamilton since 1894.

This year’s event was initially pushed from spring into fall in hopes that the race could still go ahead despite the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it soon became clear to organizers that the race simply couldn’t go ahead safely in 2020.

While 2021’s race won’t be quite the same either, imagine the electric excitement of a full return for the Around the Bay Race in 2022.

Read more on the Around the Bay Race website.

Lead image courtesy of @bayracerun

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• Around the Bay Race
• coronavirus
• COVID-19
• event
• Hamilton
• HamOnt
• Health
• pandemic
• Public Health
• race
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• virtual