Should the London marathon be banned to the public?

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
10,042
It may not be a popular opinion, but what is one life in a 6 billion. We put less effort into saving many other things which are in far far rarer.

Frankly if your stupid enough to run 26 miles in an unfit or impractical state, then well, your nothing but another statistic to me, and I don't think the stupidity of a few should ever affect the masses. However in this day and age it very much does.

/que haters.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
27 Dec 2011
Posts
10,821
Location
Darlington
Analogy/simile/whatever, I don't think it was a well chosen example. Joining the army is a much more complicated issue than doing a fun run. Especially when you start looking into the reasons WHY young men join the army - and just how much choice and knowledge about the risks involved they necessarily have, particularly in times of high youth unemployment.

Wow. Missed the point again. I'm talking about free choice. Let me repeat. Nobody is forced to join the army in the UK. We do not have conscription anymore. Joining the army is a choice. Once you are in, obviously you give up many freedoms of choice. You don't need to explain this to me as I spent 7 years in the R.A.F.. I know what it means to have your liberties restricted.

The point you keep missing and that everybody seemed to have grasped in this thread was this. Running the marathon and joining the army are both choices that we are all free to make, and those choices come with their own risks. Nobody is forced to make those choices. But once made, a chain of events may occur which result in death. Banning free choice is not the answer. Being informed before you make the choice is the answer.
 
Soldato
Joined
21 Jan 2007
Posts
8,704
It's probably all these people who use a million supplements, live on only protein powder and double cream and do exhaustion training every day until their cardiovascular system turns into a leathery mass of useless parts.

There needs to be more emphasis on the correct way to train ones body, people take it to extremes nowadays - desperate to get results faster than they should.
 
Caporegime
Joined
25 Jul 2003
Posts
40,098
Location
FR+UK
I think it's more of a case that any highly strenuous physical activity will eventually push an already failing or vulnerable heart/body to breaking point.

I'd be in favour of more information, perhaps even advise people to get a health check-up before hand - but a flat ban can't be said to gain or cost lives.

For all we know, the added motivation of the existence of the London marathon has caused X amount of people to lose weight & therefore live another 10 years+.
A couple of marathons I do regularly require a signed medical certificate.

And any marathon/run I've done requires a signed waiver accepting risk.
 
Soldato
Joined
17 Jan 2011
Posts
4,450
Location
London
No it should not be banned. That's ridiculous.

As many have said, the positive effects of marathon cannot be measured exactly but are sure to outweigh the negative effects of one individual dying. It's not like someone dies every year, the last being in 2012 and even there the result of that death was over a million quid being raised for charity. That's phenomenal.

Raise awareness about the need for runners to ensure they're adequately hydrated and fuelled up and continue to review health and safety.
 
Soldato
Joined
6 Aug 2010
Posts
5,629
Location
Birmingham
There is a risk in everything anyone does, people weigh up those risks. If they choose to run the marathon let them. There are going to many more deaths from innocuous things.
 
Back
Top Bottom