The countdown to the Athens Classic Marathon “Athens Marathon, The Authentic” officially kicked off on Thursday with the press conference organized by the Hellenic Track & Field Federation (SEGAS).

Just one month before the top event of multiple importance for Greece, scheduled to take place on November 10, SEGAS and co-organizers, Attica Region, the Municipalities of Athens and Marathon and the Hellenic Olympic Committee provided all the useful information for the international race.

According to SEGAS, this year’s event has set a new record of 60,000 participants in all races. Last year, over 55,000 athletes from 105 countries and regions flooded the Attica area.

This year, the organizers of the annual race expect for the first time to welcome 20,000 marathon runners from all over the world at the original course of the 42.195 km from Marathon to Athens.

Adding shorter running events (10km and 5km), a total of more than 60,000 athletes will run through the Attica region and Athens.

This record puts the Athens Marathon among the biggest running events in the world, they said.

One of the innovations of this year’s organization is that the 10km road race, which has been staged along with the marathon, will now be run in the early evening on the previous day in central Athens.

In the afternoon of November 9, the annual Marathon Flame Ceremonies will take place inside the archeological site of Marathon Tomb at the town of Marathon.

Every marathon runner who will cross the finish line in the Panathenaic Stadium on November 10 will receive the first medal of a new series, reflecting the history of the marathon race. This year’s medal will show the Battle of Marathon.

The classic marathon route begins near the tumulus erected for the Greek dead from the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC and ends at the Panathenaic Stadium (Kallimarmaro) in the heart of Athens, the site of the first modern Olympics in 1896. 

[Xinhua]