Santa Dash

Yes it’s the height of summer and Liverpool is already picking up a Santa Run World Challenge thrown down by the good folk of Las Vegas and Tasmania.

Linda Smith from Opportunity Village in Las Vegas and Steve Martin from the Enormity Organisation in Tasmania will be flying into Liverpool with the official World Championship Trophy for Running Santas. The trophy has been carved by hand in Tasmania and will be presented to Liverpool and Las Vegas by way of a global challenge to see who can create the biggest Santa Fun Run this year.

Liverpool held the official Guinness World Record in 2005 but the classification was for a ‘gathering’ and in 2007 Derry in Northern Ireland managed a staggering 13,000 for a gathering – but it wasn’t a run. Linda Smith from Las Vegas managed to host the biggest fun run that year but was beaten by the Derry gathering. Linda was massively disappointed, having fallen just short of the Liverpool Santa Dash totals in 2005 and 2006. She said…

“everyone in the States was really down when we found out that we had eventually beaten Liverpool – but were nowhere near the massive gathering in Derry. So, we came up with the idea of putting up a World Santa Run Trophy and Steve and the team from Tasmania have made this fantastic hand-carved Santa Trophy. I just hope that Las Vegas will be the first winners of this prestigious title.”

The challenge is open to any Santa Run in the world and between July and December the Santa Run team will be accepting official entries from around the globe. There are already six enquiries from European cities.
The launch in Liverpool will also see Radio City and the Cash For Kids charity announce their official involvement with the Liverpool Santa Dash. The launch will be announced from the Radio City tower on the morning of Saturday, 18th July and then an open top Santa bus will travelling around the city centre showing off the city to Linda and Steve and the new trophy to the people of Liverpool.