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Already 9,000 entries for jubilee race on 27th April
This year’s Vienna City Marathon will mark a special occasion: When the race
will be started on 27th April a couple of hundred thousands of spectators
will witness a jubilee event in the capital. It will be the 25th edition of
Austria’s biggest and most prestigious road race. This is one reason why entry
figures are soaring. So far about 9,000 runners have registered for the race,
which includes a half marathon, a relay event plus three races for juniors
and children. Another reason for the growing popularity of the Vienna City
Marathon is that the event has established itself as a major international
marathon. The elite fields in recent years were much stronger than before.
Additionally the race can offer a unique combination of sports and culture: ,Run
Vienna – Enjoy Classic’ is the motto of the Vienna City Marathon.
When the first edition of the race was started on 25th March 1984 organisers
were proud to register 794 finishers at the Heldenplatz, which is still the
site of the spectacular finish today. “We will see times in the future when
we will have ten times as many participants,” said Helmut Zilk after he had
started the first race 24 years ago. At that time the words of the Austrian
minister for education and art may have sounded a bit exaggerated. But the
development of the Vienna City Marathon proved that the minister was right.
There was a difficult period though: After a couple of years enthusiasm for
Austria’s first big city marathon seemed to get lost with entry numbers
stagnating. It was then in 1989 when former steeple chaser Wolfgang Konrad took
over as race director. Konrad, who at that time was the Austrian steeple record
holder (8:17.22 minutes) and a prominent athlete, guided the race into a
prosperous future. This year’s event will also mark a personal jubilee for
Konrad, because it will be his 20th Vienna City Marathon in charge as race
director. In 1995 his race was the first one which used chip timing for the entire
field of runners. Five years later Konrad started another technical
innovation, which became very popular in many races worldwide: The sending of text
messages with finishing times.
In 2007 a record field of 26,249 runners from more than 80 countries
participated in the event. It looks very likely that this year’s jubilee race will
attract an even larger number of athletes. But the Vienna City Marathon did
not only develop great regarding the mass race. Today’s course records are
world class: In 2006 Marocco’s Lahoucine Mrikik clocked 2:08:20 while six years
earlier Maura Viceconte had run 2:23:47. There are not that many city
marathons that have these sort of world class course records.
Looking at Vienna’s list of winners one finds a number of prominent names in
long distance running: Ahmed Salah (Djibouti) took the race in 1997, Kenyans
Moses Tanui and Joseph Chebet won in 2002 and 2003 while former Kenyan
Mubarak Shami (Qatar) was the winner in 2005. Luke Kibet (Kenya) triumphed a year
ago, qualifying for the World Championships. He then went on to take the
marathon gold medal in Osaka 2007. Lidia Simon (Romania) and Franziska
Rochat-Moser (Switzerland), who sadly died in a skiing accident later, both placed
second at the Vienna City Marathon.
It is the goal of Race Director Wolfgang Konrad and his team to strengthen
the position of the Vienna City Marathon as one of the major marathons
worldwide. This means further developing of the mass race as well as the elite field
plus the programme offered to runners during the weekend. This year
participants of the race can enjoy a special concert by the world famous boys choir
,Wiener Sängerknaben’ on the day before the race. At various points along the
marathon course classic music from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Strauß
will be played on race day.
More information and online entry for the 25th Vienna City Marathon is
available at: www.vienna-marathon.com.
Runners of the Vienna City Marathon passing the opera house. Credit: Victah Sailer
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