West Highland Way Race 2021 is Cancelled

I am very sorry to let you know that we have decided to cancel this year’s Altra West Highland Way Race. 

After a great deal of discussion, we have reached the conclusion that we believe there are too many significant concerns around the organisation of this year’s race to allow it to go ahead.  We appreciate that we may have been able to make adjustments to our normal format that might allow a race of sorts to take place, but feel this would not give competitors a ‘proper’ West Highland Way Race experience of the normal high quality.  It would also leave us exposed to some significant risks, particularly in terms of competitor, support crew and race crew health and safety issues. 

Unfortunately, at the moment there remain too many unknown variables associated with organising an event of this complexity.  By way of example we may not be able to access all of the premises that we require, nor can we guarantee at this stage that a race licence will be granted, which also provides race insurance, and we have no assurance that competitors and crew will be able to travel to the start, or through the various local authority areas.  We are likely to have to enforce social distancing, which will make it very difficult for crews to operate and will present difficulties at the start.  We could set competitors off in waves, but that would be another factor that diminished from the normal race experience.  We would not be able to hold a prizegiving, or after-race party.

So while we recognise that we could try and address each of the issues, we believe that the overall race quality and experience would not be of a satisfactory standard, and that we would be too exposed to one of many factors not working out.

As this is the second successive year we have had to cancel, we are not going to carry forward any entries to a future race.  Instead we will pay a full refund, less the booking fee, to all entrants, and open entries as normal in November 2021 for the 2022 race.  Further details on the 2022 race entry process, including qualification criteria, will be provided in due course.  We are unable to make a refund to the credit / debit card originally used, as the original payment was over 6 months ago, and instead will make a payment directly to each entrant’s nominated bank account.  Please provide your bank details by logging in to your SI Entries account and following the instructions below:

Click Edit Your Entry and carefully enter your account details.

Once you have entered the details you must click NEXT, tick the disclaimers again and SAVE ENTRY.

I would ask you to enter your bank account details by no later than the end of Sunday 18th April 2021.  All refunds will be batched together so it may take a further three weeks for your refund to be processed.

I know how disappointed everyone will be at this decision, and can assure you that the disappointment is shared by all of the race committee.  We are planning to organise a virtual event around the normal race weekend, and are also looking at organising an alternative ultra-marathon event on part of the West Highland Way trail later in the year and again.  More details on both of these will follow.

Best wishes

Ian Beattie

Race Director