Experience the oldest marathon in Western Europe!

We write about August 1946. The European Athletics Championships were held in Olso and the I.A.A.F. conference had taken place. During that conference, an agreement was made to hold an athletics competition between the Netherlands and Czechoslovakia in Enschede in July 1947. Saturday July 12, 1947 was the big day: 51 participants took off, hoping to return fit and healthy to the summery Van Heekpark after 42 km and 195 m.

Of that group, 33 athletes did indeed complete the race and Eero Riikonen from Finland took the first place. The Enschede Marathon was born.