FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Virgin London Marathon Ballot For 2010 Closes In Record Time

The Virgin London Marathon 2010 entry ballot has been completed after two
days and 16 hours - beating the previous record by over 15 days. In total,
over 120,000 runners have been accepted.

After unprecedented demand for places for the 2010 race, the online ballot
entry was temporarily closed on Monday 27 April to allow the London
Marathon team to add extra website capacity to meet the overwhelming
demand.

Race Director David Bedford said: 'After the success of last Sunday's race
and the beginning of a new dawn with Virgin we were expecting a massive
response for next year’s race but even we were surprised by such a
fantastic reaction to the opening of the entry ballot.'

Bedford added: 'As we run a ballot and don’t allocate spaces on a first
come first served basis, no-one will be disadvantaged because of the
temporary issue on Monday. We do of course apologise for the inconvenience
caused and thank people for their patience.'

Jayne-Anne Gadhia, Chief Executive of Virgin Money said, 'We love the fact
that the London Marathon is both a massive fundraising event and a
world-famous sporting occasion – it's a national institution. With two
course records set in the race, the first from Kurt Fearnely in the elite
men's wheelchair race, and the second from Sammy Wanjiru's in the elite
men's race, to the thousands of fun runners and fundraisers the London
Marathon has no comparison. We're really excited about being part of the
race and plan to help make 2010, the 30th London Marathon and Virgin's
first, the best yet.'

Virgin Money, the financial services division of the Virgin Group will lead
the sponsorship with the ambition of supporting the event and the runners
in their attempts to raise even greater amounts of money for good causes
across the five-year deal. Virgin hope to encourage runners to raise over
£¼ billion over the five year term of its sponsorship.

Despite the ballot for places closing in record time there are other ways
to enter for 2010. People wishing to run for a charity dear to their heart
may still be able to do so. Many major charities will have a set number of
entry places in the Virgin London Marathon each year. They will allocate
these places to runners on the basis that they will raise an agreed amount
of money for the charity. For more information potential participants
should visit www.virginlondonmarathon.com/raising-money.

There are usually more runners interested in running for each charity than
there are charity places available, so the charities will select their
runners based on the runner's connection with the good cause and how much
money they are realistically able to raise for the charity.

The 2010 Virgin London Marathon will take place on Sunday 25th April. For
more information go to: www.virginlondonmarathon.com

###