Great Wall Marathon

The Great Wall Marathon is an annual marathon race held in May along and on the Huangyaguan or Huangya Pass (Chinese: 黄崖关; Chinese: 黃崖關; Pinyin: Huángyáguān; Literally: "Yellow Cliff Pass"), Tianjin section of the Great Wall of China East of Beijing.[1][2] Since it first start in 1999, the race has grown to several hundred participants. Aside from the main marathon, a half marathon, 10 km and 5 km runs were also held up until 2012. 2013 marked the debut of an 8.5 km "fun run", replacing the 5 and 10 km distances. The course is much tougher than traditional marathons with participants challenged by 5,164 stone steps and many steep ascents and descents.[3]

2007

The winner was Salvador Calvo, whose time of 3:23:10 broke the previous course record by four minutes.

2008

Saturday May 17, 2008: Again, the previous race record was broken, this time by Great Wall Marathon first-timer Romualdo Sanchez Garita from Mexico. His finish time was 3:18:48. The fastest woman in the field was South African Leanne Juul, who finished in 4:09:10.

2009

Saturday May 16, 2009: There were 1,363 runners in the four distances. More than 40 countries were represented. The two winners in the marathon category were:

Justin Walker, USA, 3:40:54
Joanna Gosse, New Zealand, 4:03:23

2010

Saturday May 15, 2010: A record number of 1,748 participants from around the world ran the four distances.The fastest runners in the marathon were:

Qiang Tong, China, 3:24:44
Inez-Anne Haagen, The Netherlands, 3:56:38

2011

Saturday May 21, 2011: The fastest runners in the marathon were:

Yanqiao Yun, China, 3:18:48
Mari Kauri, Finland, 4:11:19

2012

Saturday May 18, 2012: The fastest runners in the marathon were:

Luis Alonso, Spain, 3:39:28
Mari Kauri. Finland, 4:10:43

2013

Saturday May 18, 2013: The fastest runners in the marathon were:

Jorge Maravilla (USA), Dimitris Theodorakakos (Greece) and Jonathan Wyatt (New Zealand) who crossed the finish line together in record time, 3:09:18
Silvia Serafini, Italy, 3:32:12 (a new women's record)

The half-marathon was won by Geoffrey de Bilderling with a time of 1 hour 38 minutes 56 seconds.

2014

Saturday May 17, 2014: The fastest runners in the marathon were:

Men: Ernesto Ciravegna, Italy, 3:33:56
Women: Sofía García Bardoll, Spain, 3:57:25

2015

The 2015 race will be held on Saturday, 16 May.

References

  1. Fishpool, Sean (5 November 2002). "The Great Wall Marathon". Runners World.
  2. "On your marks, get set, race! Alternative marathon runs". Metro (UK). 26 Oct 2012.
  3. Conner, Shawn. "5 Extreme Marathons Only Superhumans Could Survive (and Two for the Rest of Us)". BC Living. Retrieved 11 January 2013.

External links