The anniversary edition of 80 van de Langstraat had to be postponed twice due to corona. This year, the fortieth Kennedy march through the Langstraat will take place. Registration for the walking tour is open and registrations are already pouring in. “We are counting on thousands of participants,” says Tijs van Beurden, chairman of the walking event. We have invited Queen Máxima to fire the starting gun on Saturday evening, September 10.”
The organization has taken the invitation seriously: “We submitted an official and well-substantiated request to the court some time ago. Now we have to wait and see.”
The 80 van de Langstraat is a walking tour of 80 kilometers, which must be walked within 20 hours. This makes it one of the Kennedy marches that are run in the Netherlands, named after President John F. Kennedy who believed that every healthy American should be able to walk this distance.
“It is an event that cannot do without volunteers,” says Tijs. “Partly due to corona, we have lost many volunteers. Many people started doing something else during that time. We need around 750 volunteers, but we are now at 600 people who want to help. We hope to find more volunteers through publicity. For example, companies can adopt a crossing point and deploy their staff there,” says Van Beurden.
Due to corona, people have started walking a lot more and they are also aware of this when organizing the 80. “We are investigating whether we can also set up a tour over 40 kilometers. In this way we want to meet people who have gone through corona. walking, but still find 80 kilometers too far.”
Unfortunately, the pandemic of the past two years has also resulted in the death of some runners. “We receive emails from people in which they write that their loved one has lost their way due to corona, but that they would like to walk part of the route as a reminder of him or her. The 80 in relay form,” says Tijs.
“We would like to accommodate those people, so we are going to install a kind of treadmill on the Raadhuisplein in Waalwijk. In this way people, individually or as a group, can complete part of the course as a memory. We also make it possible for them to can be followed live during their relay race. There is a real need for it.”
Because it is the anniversary edition, the enthusiastic chairman is counting on around 4000 participants. “That is also the maximum,” he says. “We estimate the costs for organizing an edition at around 150,000 euros,” says Tijs. “But that amount is still uncertain because everything has become more expensive. But, we are going for it. Because, the 80 of the Langstraat will continue this year.”