Considered one of Nice Britain’s hottest half marathons, Newcastle’s Nice North Run, has issued an apology to its 60,000 contributors after mistakenly that includes a map of the fallacious metropolis and river on its official medals.
As a substitute of the River Tyne, which runs by means of Newcastle, the medal confirmed the River Put on, which flows by means of the close by metropolis of Sunderland. Each finisher’s medal handed out on race day had the error.
2025 Nice North Run medal options… err…. Sunderland as an alternative of Newcastle
Oops! pic.twitter.com/1hsYOnFZbo
— Jim Scott (@jimscottjourno) September 8, 2025
The combination-up, which unfold rapidly on social media, sparked loads of humour. Some runners even identified that the group committee have to be Sunderland AFC followers as a result of the medals had been strung with red-and-white ribbons, that are the house colors of the city’s soccer membership.
On Monday, organizers posted an announcement on social media saying they had been “sincerely sorry” for the geographical mix-up.
“Because the eagle-eyed have already noticed, the form of the river on this yr’s finisher T-shirt and medal is certainly the River Put on,” the assertion learn. “To reply the rumours that this was the route reveal for subsequent yr… sorry to disappoint, it’s a mistake. Numerous folks regarded very intently on the designs, and none of us picked it up.”
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The occasion’s founder, 1976 Olympic medallist Sir Brendan Foster, admitted he didn’t discover both. “I spent ages marvelling on the designs and by no means noticed the error—even after they had been hanging in a division retailer window,” he mentioned.
“We’ve been celebrating the area for greater than 4 a long time. This yr, we simply celebrated a bit extra of it than regular,” Foster joked.
This yr’s Nice North Run noticed 2024 London Marathon champion Alexander Mutiso take the boys’s title, whereas New York Marathon champion Sheila Chepkirui received the ladies’s race. Kenya’s Vivian Cheruiyot positioned second, with Nice Britain’s personal Eilish McColgan ending third.
Organizers promised one factor for 2026: they’ll brush up on their North East England geography.
