More than 50.000 participants from 101 countries, took part that day. 18.500 of them were participating in the Marathon, with the national championship taking place at the same time, whilst there were 5.000m., 10.000m. and 1.200m for the SPecial Olympic Hellas, as well as kid’s run and a 3.000m. event for the best athletes of Run Greece series.
-> Results
The Kenyan Samuel Kalalei, won the marathon with 2.12.17, finishing ahead of his compatriots Milton Rotich (2.14.17) and Jonathan Kiptoo (2.16.05). In women, there was an impresive race between the Junior Hirpa Badane from Ethiopia with 2.34.16 and the Kenyan Alice Kibor (2.34.21) and Nancy Arusei (2.34.49), with the victory being decided a few meters before entering the stadium.
Exciting was also the race at the National Championship.
There, Konstantinos Gelaouzos of Panathinaikos and Christophoros Merousis of Chios went head to head. Comparing with last year, Gelaouzos (coached by Christos Papachristos) run with more patience and lasted until the finish to take his first win in a national championship, finishing in 2.27.19, while the more experienced and winne of the last 4 consecutive years Merousis finished in 2.28.18.
Additionally, Merousis dealt with a lot of problem and had to go to the hospital, fortunately with nothing much serious.
In women’s race, Rania Rembouli confirmed the predictions and took her third consecutive win and 4th overall place with 2.49.04. Gykeria Tziatzia managed to pass Foteini Dagli who started faster and finished at the 2nd and 3rd place with 2.51.10 and 2.53.55 respectively. In addition, the 45-year old Karageorgaki ran in less than 3 hours.
Earlier in the 5km race, Chelimo was one of the participants. The marathon runner of the year was almost running at the pace of training finishing at 16.38 setting a new race record.
In the 3km race (Run Greece final) Theodoris Tsolakis (Crete) and Isabella Kotsachili (West Greece) took the first place.
Except from the Greek and Cypriot participants, we also saw some Spanish and Catalan flags
->photos p.1
->photos p.2
