The London Marathon
The London Marathon is an annual long-distance running event held in London, part of the World Marathon Majors. The event was first run on 29 March 1981 and has been held in the spring of every year since.
Set over a largely flat course around the River Thames, the race begins at three separate points around Blackheath and finishes in The Mall alongside St James's Park. Since the first marathon, the course has undergone very few route changes. In 1982, the finishing post was moved from Constitution Hill to Westminster Bridge due to construction works. It remained there for twelve years before moving to its present location at The Mall.
In addition to being one of the top six international marathons run over the distance of 26 mi 385 yd (42.195 km), the IAAF standard for the marathon established in 1921 and originally used for the 1908 London Olympics, the London Marathon is also a large, celebratory sporting festival, third in England only to the Great North Run in Newcastle upon Tyne and Great Manchester Run in Manchester in terms of the number of participants.
Service summary
We have supplied external traffic management, security and stewarding services to The London Marathon since 2013, and added HVM (Hostile Vehicle Mitigation) systems to our service provision in 2019.
