SIR Kevin Sinfield’s latest and last seven-day running challenge to raise funds for motor neurone disease charities, which will culminate at the Super League Grand Final at Old Trafford, starts on Sunday.
The 46-year-old Rugby League legend – knighted in the King’s Birthday Honours in June for his services to the MND community as well as to both codes of the game – has already generated more than £11 million through his tireless efforts since his late friend and former Leeds Rhinos teammate Rob Burrow was diagnosed with the illness in 2019.
MND is a rare, life-shortening neurological condition which causes weakening of muscles, and there is currently no cure.
Burrow died aged 41 in June 2024, and Sinfield has honoured him by continuing to take on extreme annual running feats, with this the seventh.
This challenge – ‘7 in 7: The Grand Finale’ – marks the completion of a series conceptually built around the number seven shirt worn by Burrow.
And it could be the biggest yet as Sinfield and his team are running seven consecutive ultramarathons, with each day split into seven-kilometre blocks which he must finish within an hour.
Each day will also include an ‘Extra Mile’ event when he will join members of the MND community in completing four laps of a running track.
While in recent years the challenge has taken him across the UK and Ireland, this one is around the Rugby League heartlands.
Sinfield is starting at Hull KR’s Sewell Group Craven Park, and by the time he reaches Manchester United’s iconic home, will have visited all twelve English Super League grounds on the way.
“We felt for the seventh one, to represent Rob properly, where he’s played all his rugby career, we’d come back up north,” he explained.
He will also take in Hull FC’s home the MKM Stadium on Sunday (September 27), then visit York Kinghts’ LNER Community Stadium on Monday (September 28) and on Tuesday (September 29) will go to Castleford Tigers’ OneBore Stadium and the DIY Kitchens Stadium of Wakefield Trinity, where his son Jack plays.
Sinfield will be at his old AMT Headingley home in Leeds on Wednesday (September 30) as well as Bradford’s Bartercard Odsal and the Accu Stadium in Huddersfield.
After going from Huddersfield to Salford on Thursday (October 1), he will take in the BrewDog Stadium at St Helens, the Progress With Unity Stadium of Leigh Leopards and Wigan Warriors’ The Brick Community Stadium on Friday (October 2).
Warrington’s Halliwell Jones Stadium then forms part of the route back east to reach Old Trafford, where Burrow played in – and won – eight Grand Finals with Leeds, Sinfield featuring in the first seven of them.
The six charities who will benefit from the funds raised are the MND Association, Leeds Hospitals Charity, My Name5 Doddie Foundation, Darby Rimmer Foundation, MND Scotland and the Irish MND Association.
Going forward, former England captain Sinfield says he will continue to support the MND community in different ways.