London Marathon names British Heart Foundation charity of the year for 2022

The organisers of the London Marathon have named the British Heart Foundation (BHF) as ‘charity of the year’ for the 2022 event.

The TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) London Marathon aims to raise £3m for BHF through the link up.

Macmillan Cancer was the charity of the year for this year’s event, which saw mass participation fundraising return to the capital following the Covid-19 pandemic. This year’s event saw the charity receive £1.9m in donations.

BHF chief executive Charmaine Griffiths says the organisation is “thrilled” to be named charity of the year for the event.

“The money raised will turbo charge pioneering research into regenerative medicine and give hope to hundreds of thousands of people living with incurable heart failure right now,” she said.

TCS London Marathon event director Hugh Brasher added: “We are delighted to welcome the British Heart Foundation as the Charity of the Year for the 2022 TCS London Marathon and look forward to working with them to support participants to raise as much money as possible.”

Next year’s event takes place on Sunday 2 October 2022. The public ballot is now open and closes at 9pm on Friday 8 October.

The 2021 event was the final year Virgin Money sponsored the event. In August it announced it is to close its Virgin Money Giving charitable arm.

After this year’s event, which took place earlier this month and involved in person and virtual fundraising, a total of £19.9m was raised for charity via Virgin Money Giving.

This is £3.8m up on the £16.1m received in 2020, when the event was run as an elite athletes only event, with fundraising carried out virtually on the day.