during the course of International Race Weekend, has been shelved.

Co-race director Phil Guishard said that a lack of support from the general public had contributed to the demise of the venture.

"In the past years we have tried to run the fitness expo and have suffered financially over the last two years,'' said Guishard, who did not rule out a return in the future.

"It wasn't selling and we had to keep prices low for the vendors and the exercise simply did not cover the costs of the building and otherwise.

"We've never been happy with the fact that the non-running rank and file did not come to the event and thus it never really hit it off. A lot of effort was put in for little return and we decided to give it a miss this year.'' Leading runner Debbie Butterfield was largely responsible for setting up the Expo, which provided both static and dynamic displays, along with demonstrations.

It is believed that Butterfield would not have been able to have devoted as much time this year to the organising of the event, which previously had opened on the Thursday prior to the staging of the mile races and closed on the Saturday.

The Expo had also been used as a registration centre where both local and overseas runners picked up their numbers and race information.