Madame Tussauds London – and some of its most famous wax figures – have got their Heads Together in support of the 2017 Virgin Money London Marathon.
Heads Together is the Official Charity of the Year for the 2017 Virgin Money London Marathon. The campaign is spearheaded by The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry. Their Royal Highnesses want to make this year’s race the ‘mental health marathon’ and hope to see runners wearing the distinctive Heads Together headbands on Marathon Day to get the country talking about mental health.
The waxwork likenesses of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry, as well as famous athletes such as Usain Bolt, Sir Mo Farah and Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, got a head-start – wearing the Heads Together headbands in images released today. They will be wearing them again for visitors to the attraction on the day of the marathon, Sunday 23 April.
Chloe Couchman from Madame Tussauds London said:
“Madame Tussauds London is delighted to support the Heads Together campaign by adding the headbands to our Royal and ‘Sporting Greats’ figures. The 2017 Virgin Money London Marathon is a moment of celebration and pride, it recognises individual sporting achievement but also the mass achievement of all those thousands of runners who will raise awareness and money for mental health charities and many others charities too. We hope our famous figures in headbands will help get people talking and make it the ‘mental health marathon’ but also inspire the upcoming runners with a few ways in which they can wear their headbands on marathon day.”
Prince Harry encouraged runners to wear the headbands in a video released on Monday:
“We want to use this moment to help end the stigma that stops people talking and change the conversation about mental health for good. You can make it the mental health marathon… Whatever cause you are running for, wear your vest with pride, and please wear your Heads Together headband too. Together we’ll get the whole country talking about mental health.”
The headbands are being provided to the runners by Virgin Money, which is one of three Founding Partners of the Heads Together campaign. Heads Together also announced that everyone will be able to support the mental health marathon by wearing their own Heads Together headband on social media. A number of innovative ways that people can don a headband online, to be part of the ‘mental health marathon’, will be announced in the coming weeks. To kick off the campaign to get as many people as possible wearing headbands to show their support, Heads Together and Twitter have unveiled a custom emoji of a smiley face wearing a Heads Together headband, which appears automatically when you use the hashtags #HeadsTogether #TeamHeadsTogether and #oktosay on the social media platform.
In the days leading up to the Marathon, Heads Together headbands will pop up in a number of surprising places across London.
