Personal information | |
---|---|
Nationality | Irish |
Sport | |
Sport | Athletics |
Event | Marathon |
Richard Donovan (born c. 1966) [1] is an Irish runner, commercial race organizer, and sports administrator. Donovan organised and was first to complete the inaugural South Pole Marathon [2] in January 2002, then completed the first marathon-length run in the North Pole in April of that year. [3] He used the publicity from this to launch his North Pole Marathon venture, offering runners an adventure tourism experience, with the 2018 event costing €16,000. [4]
Between 30 January and 5 February 2009, Donovan claimed a worlds best for running seven marathons, on seven different continents, in fewer than seven days. [1] Starting 1 February 2012 he improved on this by completing the 7 on 7 in under 120 hours. [5]
Donovan has also completed transcontinental runs across North America in 2015 and Europe in 2016, [6] adding South America in 2017. In addition to the North Pole Marathon, he organizes a number of other commercial events.