Exceptional congratulations Visiting Košice to celebrate the Marathon together with thousands of runners were some trult prominent guests. The President of AIMS Paco Borao, the head of European Athletics Hansjörg Wirz, the founder of the Berlin Marathon Horst Milde, the first woman in charge of the Boston Marathon Joann E. Flaminio, ambassador of AIMS Henryk Paskal and the legendary British runner Ron Hill. All of them enjoyed their stay in Košice, and they were not sparing with sincere congratulations.
First time over 10 000 We’ve already got used to the number of KPM participants rising year after year. This great anniversary though saw it climb for the first time over the magic threshold of 10 000. The statistics continue with a wealth of other figures. For example, 45 different countries were represented, the participants worked in 57 different professions, the queen event featured the most runners with 36 years of age, and the fact that one third of the field in Košice was made up of women.
2012
10 194
2011
9 451
7 419
5 421
2010
6 644
5 074
3 900
2009
2013
2014
8
3 200
Number of participants
Year
1924
2007
The Marathon was hard to miss A massive PR campaign, five press conferences in September and lively discussions on the social networks combined to make the Marathon one of the dominant topics of current affairs in Slovakia. On Sunday, 5th October itself, thanks to the generously dimensioned live television broadcast and the thickly crowded streets, the Marathon was watched by the best part of 500 000 people.
2008
MEDIA GUIDE
príručka pre médiá
Tribute to the most loyal The act of lighting the Marathon flame drew thousands of onlookers to Račko’s Marathoner Statue. The torch had travelled all the way from the first starting-point at Turňa into the hands of two talented students of the Košice Sports High School. The honour of lighting the flame then went to Eva Kissová and Peter Polák, the loyalest of the loyal. The following Sunday Peter Polák ran his 37th and Eva Kissová her 28th Košice Peace marathon. Both of them can be proud of the fact that they have never given up on a single marathon in Košice.
Winners within reach of their best times The statistics of the KPM winners reveal interesting things regarding improvements in their personal best times, when as many as seven of them in the last nine years have recorded new PBs in Košice. Gilbert Chepkwony also came close in 2014, only ten seconds off his maximum here. Similarly Lydia Rutto too among the women. She only needed less than half a minute to make her smile even wider with the laurels around her neck. What is more, the times of both winners are the second best respectively in the whole history of this event.
Ron Hill doesn’t like just walking Inviting Ron Hill to Friday’s ice-hockey game in the Steel Arena was no simple affair. He didn’t have time. He needed to get his daily dose of kilometres under his belt, and since he had spent most of the day sitting in the plane to Košice, it had to be done in the early evening. His rule was: not a day without a run, and he hadn’t broken it for 50 years! In the end the European Champion and Boston Marathon winner managed both, his run and the hockey, which he saw live for the first time in his life.
Brilliant wheelchair racers This was the 25th time that disabled athletes competed on the KPM course. Among them was a true legend of this sport in Slovakia, Daniel Kukľa. This multiple winner was beaten this time only by the Pole Rafal Wilko, who set a brilliant new course record of 30 minutes and 50 seconds over the 20 km distance.
The champions were not left behind Nearly all of them are over 50, but they showed much younger teams that they had not lost much of their champions’ quality. In the Champions’ Relay the first leg was managed by František Višnický and Vlasto Bukovjan as a twosome, then completed in turn by Karol David, Petr Pipa and Robo Štefko, taking them into 4th place overall in the very respectable time of 2:37:54. The KPM winners from the period 1983 – 1999 in fact got to within a stone’s throw of the virtual bronze podium spot.
For collectors and for libraries This grand anniversary of the KPM was also accompanied by several interesting creative accomplishments. Since late September the shelves of bookshops and libraries have sported a new cross-sectional publication mapping the stories, facts and figures collected by the Marathon chroniclers in 90 long years. Collectors came into their own too, with a vintage minting of commemorative euro coins from Kremnica and the issuing of a third postage stamp in the occasional KPM series. In this way the year 2014 has truly contributed a proper handful to the mosaic of Marathon artifacts. MARAthon
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Prepared by: Košice Marathon Club & Progress Promotion Košice, 2014 · Photos: Košice Marathon Club, Progress Promotion Košice, Anton and Tomáš Mačej, BEHAME.SK, FaxCopy · Design & pre-press: Progress Promotion Košice. Not available for sale.