Vienna City Marathon celebrates its 25th edition – Already 22,000 entries for jubilee race on 27th April

This year’s Vienna City Marathon will mark a special occasion: When the race will be started on 27th April a couple of hundred thousands of spectators will witness a jubilee event in the capital. It will be the 25th edition of Austria’s biggest and most prestigious road race.

This is one reason why entry figures are soaring. By 18th march 22,000 runners have registered for the race, which includes a half marathon, a relay event plus three races for juniors and children. Another reason for the growing popularity of the Vienna City Marathon is that the event has established itself as a major international marathon. The elite fields in recent years were much stronger than before. Additionally the race can offer a unique combination of sports and culture: ,Run Vienna – Enjoy Classic’ is the motto of the Vienna City Marathon.

794 finishers in 1984
When the first edition of the race was started on 25th March 1984 organisers were proud to register 794 finishers at the Heldenplatz, which is still the site of the spectacular finish today. “We will see times in the future when we will have ten times as many participants,” said Helmut Zilk after he had started the first race 24 years ago. At that time the words of the Austrian minister for education and art may have sounded a bit exaggerated. But the development of the Vienna City Marathon proved that the minister was right.

There was a difficult period though: After a couple of years enthusiasm for Austria’s first big city marathon seemed to get lost with entry numbers stagnating. It was then in 1989 when former steeple chaser Wolfgang Konrad took over as race director. Konrad, who at that time was the Austrian steeple record holder (8:17.22 minutes) and a prominent athlete, guided the race into a prosperous future. This year’s event will also mark a personal jubilee for Konrad, because it will be his 20th Vienna City Marathon in charge as race director. In 1995 his race was the first one which used chip timing for the entire field of runners. Five years later Konrad started another technical innovation, which became very popular in many races worldwide: The sending of text messages with finishing times.

Mass race and world class performances
In 2007 a record field of 26,249 runners from more than 80 countries participated in the event. It looks very likely that this year’s jubilee race will attract an even larger number of athletes. But the Vienna City Marathon did not only develop great regarding the mass race. Today’s course records are world class: In 2006 Marocco’s Lahoucine Mrikik clocked 2:08:20 while six years earlier Maura Viceconte had run 2:23:47. There are not that many city marathons that have these sort of world class course records.

Looking at Vienna’s list of winners one finds a number of prominent names in long distance running: Ahmed Salah (Djibouti) took the race in 1997, Kenyans Moses Tanui and Joseph Chebet won in 2002 and 2003 while former Kenyan Mubarak Shami (Qatar) was the winner in 2005. Luke Kibet (Kenya) triumphed a year ago, qualifying for the World Championships. He then went on to take the marathon gold medal in Osaka 2007. Lidia Simon (Romania) and Franziska Rochat-Moser (Switzerland), who sadly died in a skiing accident later, both placed second at the Vienna City Marathon.

Run Vienna – Enjoy Classic
It is the goal of Race Director Wolfgang Konrad and his team to strengthen the position of the Vienna City Marathon as one of the major marathons worldwide. This means further developing of the mass race as well as the elite field plus the programme offered to runners during the weekend. This year participants of the race can enjoy a special concert by the world famous boys choir ,Wiener Sängerknaben’ on the day before the race. At various points along the marathon course classic music from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Strauß will be played on race day.

Jörg Wenig