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The 27th SuisseGas Belgrade Marathon, which will be held in the Serbian capital on the 27th April this year, will host both the Balkan Marathon Championships and the Serbian Half Marathon Championships, it was announced at the press conference held at the Journalists' Association of Serbia (UNS) on 8 April with Director Deja Nikolic (m) ©SuisseGas Belgrade Marathon
Belgrade Marathon -Two championships to be held at the 27th SuisseGas Belgrade Marathon on the 27th April 2014
The 27th SuisseGas Belgrade Marathon, which will be held in the Serbian capital on the 27th April this year, will host both the Balkan Marathon Championships and the Serbian Half Marathon Championships, it was announced at the press conference held at the Journalists' Association of Serbia (UNS) on 8 April.
Belgrade's oldest traditional athletics event has already hosted the Balkan Marathon Championships six times (the last time in 2012) and this year will see the largest number of participants as the Association of the Balkan Athletic Federations (ABAF) now numbers 15 countries. They are Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia and Turkey.
The best marathoners from 15 countries and the best Serbian half marathoners from official championships will take part in this year's marathon, Serbia's highest quality athletic event, which also boasts the longest tradition and commands a special respect. This is why I am grateful to everyone involved in the organization of the Belgrade marathon, especially the Ministry of Youth and Sport of Republic of Serbia, which is supporting this event through the Athletic Federation of Serbia with seven million dinars (60 000 EUR), the Belgrade City Assembly, which will give a great contribution to the organization, the sponsors…
The Athletic Federation of Serbia and the Belgrade Marathon have signed an Agreement on a long-term cooperation in the promotion of healthy living, primarily through jogging and running, and I believe that the 27th marathon will be one of the best organized marathons so far – said Slobodan Branković, the secretary general of the Athletics Federation of Serbia.
This cooperation will culminate in an Athletics public lesson which will be held at the site of the new athletic indoor arena (in construction) in Belgrade on the 25th April.
The teachers will the promoter of the 27th SuisseGas Belgrade Marathon, Kevin Young (USA), the world record holder and former world and Olympic champion in the 400m hurdles and Dragutin Topić, Serbia's record holder in the high jump, a former European champion and project manager of the Athletic Federation of Serbia's project "Kids' athletics".
– The participants of the Athletics public lesson will be the finalists of the Children's Marathon, which will be held at the Belgrade Zoo on Saturday, the 12th April. The finalists, aged 5-6 years, will be the most successful competitors among the 16,000 participants of the qualification races held in all Belgrade's kindergartens. The Children marathon is organized jointly by Department of children's care of the City of Belgrade and Belgrade marathon – said the Belgrade Marathon director, Dejan Nikolić, adding that 2,500 marathoners and half marathoners from 50 countries from all continents had already sent in their e-applications.
Nikolić also added that this figure does not include the participants of the Balkan Marathon Championships and Serbian Half Marathon Championships, nor the elite runners, primarily from Kenya and Ethiopia. He went on to say that the experience of previous years showed that in the week ahead of the marathon approximately 2,000 participants register in person in the Registration centre in Belgrade and that the 5km Coca-Cola Fun Run is expected to have 15-20 thousand of participants of all ages.
Dejan Nikolić
