Should the London marathon be banned to the public?

easyrider

easyrider

easyrider

Caporegime
Joined
24 Dec 2005
Posts
40,150
Location
Autonomy
A death in 2012 and now a death in 2014...The London Marathon is more dangerous than the Grand National.

Should there be deaths in what is a fun race for thousands?
 
I think equip everyone with battleaxes and that way there can be a race in a fun death for thousands.
 
Nobody forces anyone to run the London Marathon. Just like nobody forces anyone to join the army and end up serving on the front line in Afghanistan.

We live in a free society where we are free to make choices regarding our lives. Some of these choices carry varying degrees of mortal risk.

To ban the London Marathon, an event which is partaken by tens of thousands, just because a person or a few persons die every year is frankly ridiculous.
 
I imagine if you look at the statistics for such a massive group of people it would almost certainly say that at least one of them would have a high chance of dying on any given day.
It just so happens that sometimes that day is when the marathon is being run.
 
Perhaps more information on staying hydrated, safety etc would be a better approach than simply banning people from running.
 
The police have caused more deaths than that, so clearly they should be banned as well. Also, why is there no media reporting of piano related deaths - what are they hiding?
 
I blame the Romanians, before they came here there was none of this nonsense, now look,

people dying in races etc
 
Sliver said:
Nobody forces anyone to run the London Marathon. Just like nobody forces anyone to join the army and end up serving on the front line in Afghanistan.
Click to expand...

To be fair, the army analogy is a little different - you aren't forced to join up, but once in you are pretty much forced to do what they tell you - including the front line in Afghanistan. And expecting to go on the front line means an expectation of very real danger to life

As for London Marathon; I suspect the promotion effect of such a popular fitness event will positively impact the life expectancy of many more people than will the mortality of the race itself. (i.e. more people inspired to keep fit)

They should always be reviewing safety of the event, though, to cut down on risk.
 
No this idea is ridiculous.
What about sky diving? No. Just no.
Dont like risk do we? Because when you left your house earlier that was a risk
 
cheesyboy said:
To be fair, the army analogy is a little different - you aren't forced to join up, but once in you are pretty much forced to do what they tell you - including the front line in Afghanistan. And expecting to go on the front line means an expectation of very real danger to life
Click to expand...

I was making a point which clearly went over your head. Let me clarify. Life is about choices. Some choices carry more of a mortal risk than others. We live in a free society where we are free to make life choices.

I was not making an analogy as you said,I was in fact contrasting the potential life choices we are all free to make with the potential risk to life which those choices may bring.
 
In my opinion part of the spirit of the London Marathon is all fundraising and fun runners so I think it would ruin the event if you were to ban the public!
 
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+.

Without knowing the net positive (very hard to determine) it's hard to see if the activity has a net benefit or cost in human life to begin with (from a runners perspective) - even if it didn't I fail to see why banning it would be a good idea. That's ignoring the net incremental benefit of the donations raised to many charities which save lives (which if you added that to the formulae would most certainly result in a net benefit).
 
Sliver said:
I was making a point which clearly went over your head. Let me clarify. Life is about choices. Some choices carry more of a mortal risk than others. We live in a free society where we are free to make life choices.

I was not making an analogy as you said,I was in fact contrasting the potential life choices we are all free to make with the potential risk to life which those choices may bring.
Click to expand...

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.
 
elmarko said:
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+.
Click to expand...

If you'll excuse the pun, there's a lot of mileage in what you have said here. I'm sure the health benefits for all the marathon runners who train and eat well and live healthy lives certainly would outweigh the odd death.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom