A lot of the reaction here is very defensive; not surprising since all of us have some track record running in the hills or we wouldn't be posting here. But in truth, there is an argument that the organisers have exercised poor judgement this weekend though I expect I'll be shot for saying it.
First, OMM isn't a fell race. While the latter tend to attract pretty "specialist" participants, the big MMs attract a number of entrants who are far LESS qualified to be in the hills in adverse conditions (or in the hills at all.) Look at Three Peaks entries this year vs. a usual year...bet a lot of people ran it who hadn't run a mountain race before and won't do one again this year. Unlike fell races, events like OMM do attract people who just shouldn't be there. At LAMM in midsummer (outside of an exceptional year) you can get away with it. At OMM that is rarely true. I had a lengthy e-mail exchange this week with a lady running her first OMM (and asking for advice) in the course of which I made a comment about the required level of fitness. Her response: "don't you worry. I run round Richmond Park three times a week." I'm being serious, too.
Second, after the floods on Thursday/Friday there was clearly absolutely no margin for error with regard to the impact of any more rain. To add insult to injury, the forecast for Saturday made it abundantly clear that if it proved right, there were going to be serious problems. Fine, weather forecasts are mainly wrong but the organisers really were sailing very, very close to the edge in my opinion. If they had confidence in the skills of the entrants and had vetted the entries for competence then the race shouldn't have been called off no matter what. The fact that they did call if off compounds the lack of judgement they showed in letting it go ahead as, in calling it off, they acknowledged that conditions weren't safe for at least some minority of participants and probably more than that.
Lastly, though it's anecdotal evidence, the majority of the half dozen or so runners who have thus far posted their views on BBCs own site seem to have elected to withdraw within an hour of the start and even before the formal cancellation. As these were mainly hardy, seasoned runners that tells me something. Given the number of people put at risk and the number I understand Mountain Rescue are still out looking for even now, when one considers the weather over the past 48 hours plus the forecast for today, you don't need a lot of hindsight to seriously question the judgement of letting this go ahead.
While the BBCs standard of reporting has lived down to its reputation and some of the coverage has been laughable I'm sorry but I think this is mainly a mess of OMMs own making. I also think the lack of any OMM official spokesperson to address the press hasn't exactly helped.
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