Volkswagen Prague Marathon highlights

Apr 28, 2017

The Czech Republic’s most celebrated race, the Volkswagen Prague Marathon will kick off on Sunday 7th May for the twenty-third time in its history.

Dubbed one of the world’s most beautiful marathons, it will play host to elite athletes as well as thousands of runners from almost ninety countries around the world. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to enjoy this athletics festival as a runner, volunteer, fan or spectator with live broadcasting from Česká televize.

Key information:

23^rd race year

The Volkswagen Prague Marathon will be broadcast live on ČT Sport. Starting at 8.50 a.m. on Sunday 7^th May

The Volkswagen Prague Marathon is the second race in the RunCzech Running League, comprising a total of seven races in five cities around the Czech Republic. Along with last year’s new feature, the O2 4×5 Prague Relay, a grand total of 82,840 runners took part in RunCzech events in 2016 – that’s eight thousand more than in 2015

The race has been awarded the Gold Quality Label from the International Association of Athletics Federations for the seventh time in a row. Seven RunCzech Running League races boast a total of seven Gold Quality Labels which places the Czech Republic at the helm of the world rankings for countries organising long-distance runs. No other country can pride itself on this one hundred percent track record

The race kicks off at 9 a.m. from Old Town Square. The last runner will arrive at the same place seven hours later, i.e. at 16 p.m. and will be welcomed by the entire RunCzech team

The start gun will be sounded by Prague Mayor Adriana Krnáčová

The race earned its reputation thanks to the beautiful course which cuts through the historical heart of Prague, leading runners around the Vltava and over six bridges including the famous Charles Bridge. The competing runners will start from Old Town Square, run around the National Theatre, the Dancing House, Municipal House and other key sights

10,600 marathon runners will make it to the race start line, with relays now exclusively reserved for the O2 4×5 Prague Relay race held in June. All those lacking the confidence to complete the entire marathon distance can sign up to 2Run where each runner completes half the distance

The Volkswagen Prague Marathon became the fastest May marathon of all time in 2010 thanks to Eliud Kiptanui’s race record of 2.05:39. The women’s race record of 2:22:34 has been held by Lydia Cheromei since 2011

The main race favourites to win include men who have previously managed to smash the 2 hour and 7 minute limit, in this case a trio of Kenyans – Lani Rutto, Frankline Chepkwony and Stephen Chemlany along with a trio of Ethiopians – Bazu Worku, Feyisa Bekele and Gebretsadik Abraha

Ethiopia is likely to dominate the women’s category including four runners – Feyse Tadese, Amane Beriso, Mulu Seboko and Tadelech Bekele – all with personal bests under 2:24. In terms of the Kenyans, Valary Aiyabey may be the one who surprises us most

Czech fans can look forward to the traditional Czech Republic marathon championships, taking place as part of the marathon. Competing runners include the defender of last year’s victory title Petr Pechek, Vít Pavlišta as well as Radka Churáňová and Dagmar Rychnovská or Petra Pastorová

The Volkswagen Prague Marathon has traditionally offered runners one of the last opportunities to meet the standards of their respective athletics federations to qualify for the forthcoming world championships, being held this year in London. We can therefore look forward to seeing elite representatives from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Brazil, New Zealand, Ecuador, Venezuela, Uruguay and Greece

A number of well-known personalities will also be taking part alongside elite athletes. These include Olympic decathlon Gold medallist Roman Šebrle and actor / presenter Dalibor Gondík who will be competing as a duo as part of the Johnson & Johnson Women’s Challenge. Taking part in the 2Run are guitarist from the band Chinaski František Táborský along with Light for the World director Richard Schinko. Taking on the whole marathon distance are rowing Olympic Silver medallist from the coxed four at the Athens Games David Kopřiva, the surgeon Tomáš Šebek and severely visually impaired runner Ondřej Zmeškal

The Volkswagen Prague Marathon was the first in the world to boast a digitalised version. The Prague Digital Marathon will also get under way at 9 a.m. on Sunday 7^th May

The Volkswagen Prague Marathon not only offers spectators an interesting sporting spectacle, but also a diverse accompanying programme. The Sport Expo Prague takes place all day Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The accompanying programme will include autograph signings with elite runners plus a discussion with Vít Pavlišta and Petr Vabroušek, meetings with elite athletes and children plus our traditional Pasta Party

The non-competitive dm Family Run will now move to the Saturday and Stromovka Park which will play host to its very first dm Family Day. The 5,300 participants of the dm Family Run will take on the five-kilometre course which starts and finishes at Výstaviště, with other events including the Walk With Dogs and a cani-cross competition category boasting five hundred participants, plus a mini-marathon concert for kids featuring the band Pískomil se vrací

A total of 34 bands will perform as part of the Marathon Music Festival on race day

300 high-school students will also be joining the Junior Marathon final. The 30 ten-member teams were selected from 13 semi-final rounds throughout the Czech Republic featuring 2,550 students and 126 teachers

The top level of medical care offered along the course each year will see some new features this year. Four mobile AED cycle patrols furnished with an automatic external defibrillator linking up to professionals from the Prague Medical Rescue Service team will move in among the runners. 30 Ibalgin Medical Point stands will also be dotted around the course

RunCzech works with fifty charity organisations. Last year a total of 5,287 runners generated almost ten million Crowns for the Run for a Good Cause project. Doctors Without Borders is the main charity partner for the Volkswagen Prague Marathon

The greatest number of foreign runners taking part in the marathon will be coming from France, Italy, Great Britain, China, Germany, Slovakia, Spain, the United States and Sweden

The official race hashtag is #PragueMarathon

Interesting statistics:

The race capacity for the Volkswagen Prague Marathon stands at 10,600 runners, with a further 5,300 people running the dm Family Mini-Marathon and 500 the Walk With Dogs. This means a total of 16,400 people will take part in the Volkswagen Prague Marathon

A total of 88 nationalities will appear at the start line

76,5 % runners are made up of men, 23,5 % women

The average age of women taking part in the marathon is 39.8 years, the average age of men is 42.3 years

Women typically complete the Volkswagen Prague Marathon in 3:54:43, men in 3:41:32

A total of 31 men and 9 women will be celebrating their birthdays on race day

Jan is the most common name at the start line, followed by Petr and Martin. The most common names among women are Jana, Lenka and Petra

The oldest male runner is 83 years of age (Jiří Přidal, CZE), the oldest female runner is 80 (Joyce Hodges-Hite, USA)

The vast majority of long-distance runners are university educated (58 %), runners with high school level education make up 34 %, and the remaining 8 % with basic education