Third year of groundbreaking global charity run looks to shatter participation, distance and contribution records with new locations and unique Catcher Car format featuring celebrity drivers.
Combining two of the major trends in running today – charity runs and sport-for-all events – with its own signature innovations, the annual Wings for Life World Run is racing back into the international spotlight for its third year. Registration is now open for the 8 May run, which will be, globally, a highlight of the 2016 calendar for runners of all levels. Runners of all abilities, fun runners and fanatics, young and old, will come together in Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin to run the Irish race of the Wings for Life World Run.
Starting on the seafront in Dún Laoghaire, Irish participants will run south towards Bray and Greystones, enjoying the beautiful coastal views and scenic landscape of the East Coast. There’s no static finish line, no set distance. Everyone finishes.
Registration is now open for everyone on
The Wings for Life World Run was launched in 2014 to raise funds for the Wings for Life Spinal Cord Research Foundation. Pioneering the concept of a synchronised race where participants across the world run simultaneously, the event introduced the Catcher Car format, in which a celebrity-driven vehicle gives the runners a head start, chasing the field at a predetermined pace. While the individual man and woman last to be caught are declared Global Champions, all the participants have their own personal goals and motivations, which are as varied and unique as the runners themselves.
One-hundred percent of all entry fees and donations contributed by the Wings for Life World Run participants, and by the friends and families who support them to maximise their financial impact, goes to spinal cord research projects to help find a cure for spinal cord injuries.
The 2015 event saw 101,280 participants in 33 countries across 12 time zones raising 4.2 million euros for Wings for Life’s single goal.Japan’s Yuuko Watanabe was crowned 2015 Wings for Life World Run Female Global Champion with 56.33km, while Lemawork Ketema of Ethiopia repeated as men’s Global Champion in running to a distance of 79.9km. As it will be in 2016, the entire event was followed by viewers across the globe, thanks to an enthralling live-stream experience, which shares the effort, elation and emotion of the runners.
Worldwide, group-participation running has been growing regardless of charitable connections.For example, research on the mass-participation running boom by Jens Jakob Andersen, a former statistician with the Copenhagen Business School and a founder of RunRepeat.com, identified a 13.25 percent growth in marathon running globally between 2009 and 2014, with the biggest national increase in Russia (300 percent) followed by China (259.47 percent).* “I believe running will always be a major sport because of its simplicity and its flexibility”, Andersen commented.
It’s time to choose where to run at the Wings for Life World Run 2016. No matter where they live, runners of all levels can sign up for any location of their choice.