More than 15,000 foreign athletes and other participants have arrived in Athens for Sunday’s 36th Athens Marathon The Original, expected to break the participation record for the event.
More than 55,000 runners will participate in three different marathon races, while more than 200,000 people will be directly or indirectly involved with the 36th Athens Marathon The Original.
Specifically, 18,750 runners will compete in the classic race from Marathon to the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens and 19,000 additional runners will compete in the 5 km and 10 km races. Eight thousand participants will run in the afternoon 5 km race and 9,100 children and Special Olympics athletes will run short distances in the center of Athens and other cities along the Marathon routes.
Hotels in Attica are currently at 70 percent occupancy, and visitors are expected to spend 25 million euros in the five days they will stay in Attica.
The Athens race is the ultimate Marathon experience, recreating the historical run of the herald Pheidippides who ran 42 kilometers from Marathon to Athens to tell Athenians “We won” the battle against the Persians in Marathon 2,500 years ago.
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