Ford Sponsors TOR

And Damian Hall is racing Tor des Géants this year, and Damian is part of (founder?!) of the The Green Runners, and The Green Runners campaign against sports washing and especially car companies sponsoring trail races. Damian on Instagram:

I needed to make a decision whether to run or not, for several reasons; including financial, child care, mental health, etcetera. Neither decision felt satisfactory. Though I felt suspicious, there wasn’t enough there to be sure it was sportswashing. So I committed to run. 

…

While my real beef is with Ford rather the Tor, I’m gutted. The Tor felt like everything UTMB wasn’t. And I really hope that can still be the case.

Look, I salute Damian and The Green Runners for highlighting and making climate change a topic of discussion in trail running, but the ‘sportswashing’ angle is a tough one to take for me. Trail runners are asking for more and more from events. Rather than endlessly increasing entry fees (which creates equity issues) and putting the burden on the runners alone, events partners with brands to sponsor these events. To NOT partner with a car company for an events company that clearly needs vehicles to put on an event, especially one of the scale like TOR just because of optics feels misplaced and shortsighted. The issue of climate change is about more than just optics.