Atlanta’s 2020 Peachtree Road Race goes 100% virtual (previously postponed to 11/26)

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The Atlanta Track Club bought time and considered going to great lengths to stage The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race as an in-person race. However, the coronavirus’ continued pervasiveness claimed another landmark sporting event. Initially delayed from its customary July 4 date to Thanksgiving Day in hopes that COVID-19 would have been under better control, the Peachtree now will be run solely in a virtual setting.

“We’ll do so with mixed emotions, but we’ll do it knowing that this is going to be the safest route and also the route that delivers the most authentic Peachtree possible,” track club executive director Rich Kenah told the AJC.

The long-standing Atlanta tradition will no longer be an event featuring 60,000 runners and walkers making their way through the streets, cheered on by a mass of spectators. Instead, participants will design a 6.2-mile course of their choosing with the use of an app and run on Thanksgiving. The track club will create the app that will enable participants to track their times and measure their performance against other finishers.

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The coronavirus pandemic has necessitated the postponement of an Atlanta Independence Day tradition that is practically synonymous with the holiday. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race, which has been run down Peachtree Street on every Fourth of July since its inception in 1970, has been pushed back to Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 26.

“The guidance was as follows,” Atlanta Track Club executive director Rich Kenah told the AJC. “That, despite the fact that the curves may look good on July 4, there is just not enough information at this time, not enough testing, and the medical community just would not be comfortable with bringing thousands of people together so quickly.”

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