23rd Plus Budapest International Marathon

A fantastic, real running weather welcomed the runners on the 23 rd Plus Budapest International Marathon. More than 3000 marathon runners began the race at 10 o’clock in the morning. Over 500 runners joined them at the 12 th kilometre to finish the course with the marathoners and run a 30 km distance. The 42 kilometres could be divided between 3 or 5 runners and thus about 500 teams of runners ran together with the marathon runners. Overall on 10 different distances 12 900 runners took part on the running day, out of them more than 2000 runners came from abroad, from 50 different countries. Never have so many foreigners come to Budapest in the past! Overall, the majority of the runners came from France, Great Britain, Finland, followed by Germany (almost 200 runners) and Italy.

This year a new course was designated for the runners, however, still including the most spectacular parts of Budapest .
The atmosphere of the race made the day unforgettable for all runners!
The race was also the Hungarian Marathon Championship, the winners were

Men
1. Gergely Rezessy (Hungarian ) 2:24:18

2. Erkolo Ashenafi (Ethiop) 2:24:21

3. Tamás Bogos (Hungarian) 2:24:24

4. Ferenc Biri (Hungarian) 2:25:07

5. Szabolcs Kustos (Hungarian) 2:26:41

6. István Őri (Hungarian) 2:26:47

Women
1. Judit Nagy Földigné (Hungarian) 2:45:30

2. Réka Bátai (Hungarian) 2:56:07

3. Judit Pettkó-Szandtner (Hungarian) 3: 02:03

4. Gyöngyike Nagy ( Romania ) 3: 03:14

5. Zita Kis ( Romania ) 3: 03:49

6. Gilbert Sally ( Great Britain ) 3: 05:03

The next Budapest International Marathon called the 24 th Spar Budapest International Marathon will be organised on 4 October 2009 ! Come and join us, see this race for yourself!