About 60,000 runners took part in the 37th Athens Authentic Marathon, which became a two-day event this year and had a new collectors medal.
Kostas Gelaouzos for his 3rd consecutive year and Eleftheria Petroulakis for the 2nd year were by far the winners of the Greek National Marathon Championship.
-> Results
High levels of humidity, rain at the beginning and end, slippery roads and head wind were definitely against runners’ efforts on Sunday 10/11.
Kostas Gelaouzos (Panathinaikos) did an excellent race, just 6 weeks after his race in Berlin and finished in 2:19:02, close to his PB.
Gelaouzos was 3rd, as the wiinner was the 42-year-old Kenyan Komen Kipkorir in 2:16.34 after tough competition with Muhitira from Rwanda.
A special moment for the race and competition was the participation of the winner of Athens 2004, Stefano Baldini, who finished 99th in 2:57.07
Eleftheria Petroulaki (Mykonos) easily finished 1st (after 32 men) in 2:45:50.
A special appearance was by the Korean Ho Han Dong, a blind athlete who covered the 42,2km with a device of special glasses connected to high-resolution cameras and GPS. He was receiving coded real-time information about the route, possible problems in road, objects etc and the position of athletes that surrounded him.
In the 5km races, Marios Anagnostou won in final straight in 14.51 with Markos Gourlias following 3 seconds later. Anastasia Marinakou won the womens event in 17.06.
In the meantime there were 1200m races for Special Olympics and children and a 3km “Run Greece final” race.
The day before took place the 10km race where George Tassis won in 31.50. In womens event Gloria Privileggio won in 35.59 – in 3rd place was the 13 years old Glykeria Skarkou in 37.07.