NEW RACE Director Michael Jordan said he hopes to “do justice” to the fourth Hope & Dream event, after Tom Herlihy and John O’Leary recently announced they would be stepping down from organising their brainchild.

Mr. Jordan, who is secretary for the Hope Cancer Support Centre in Enniscorthy – which benefits financially from the charity race, along with Wexford’s branch of Console – decided to take on the leading role after the founders decided to “take a step aside”.

But he was keen to stress at the launch of the 2015 event in the Presentation Centre on Wednesday evening that the men “have not resigned and have still been there every step of the way.”

Mr. Jordan, who said he will be joined by a team of 200 people in total to run the race, also admitted that he was “nervous” at the prospect of taking responsibility.

“It is a brand, and we didn’t want to take it on if we couldn’t do it justice,” he said. “But a man who has been coming into our centre for many years told me, “Of course you can do it, you know my motto – if we do nothing, nothing will happen”.

“We adopted this motto for the event, but it’s a good one for life in general, too.”

Mr. Jordan added that he is already looking forward to the big date next year – April 12 – and is confident of continued success.

He said walkers and runners will adorn neon orange jerseys this time round, which for the first time are being made locally by Tom Hogan’s new business raceprint.ie.

Mr. Jordan also made special mention for sponsors of the charity event and said they “couldn’t begin to put the race together without them.”