There is a week to go with the 97th edition of Europe’s oldest marathon, founded in 1924

There is a week to go until the 97th edition of Europe’s oldest marathon, founded in 1924.

The Košice Peace Marathon takes place on 4 October under the auspices of the President of the Slovak Republic Zuzana Čaputová and will be limited to 1000 participants for the marathon distance.

Performances in this race can count towards qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics. Leading runners are Miharu Shimokado (JPN, 2:27:54) and Viktoriya Khapilina (UKR, 2:28:03). There are a few marathon debuts in the men’s race including Mohamed Ali (NED, 1:03:09) and Pierre Denays (BEL, 1:03:54).

This edition of the Košice Peace Marathon is dedicated to Derek Clayton (78), the first man who ran under 2:10. He competed in Košice 50 years ago. Lochlan Clarke, a young Australian student living in Košice, will symbolically run in his footsteps.

Peter Polak (72) will run his 44th Košice Peace Marathon and there are 61 members of Diamond Club, who have each completed the Košice Marathon 25 times or more.

posted Friday September 25th