Palestine Marathon

Palestine Marathon
Date April
Location Bethlehem, Palestine
Event type Road
Distance Marathon
Primary sponsor None
Established 2013
Official site www.palestinemarathon.com

The Palestine Marathon is an annual road running event, including races over the marathon, half marathon, 10 km and 5 km distances, that takes place on the streets of Bethlehem, Palestine. It was held for the first time on April 21, 2013 and had approximately 700 participants. The idea to organize a marathon in Bethlehem was originally conceived by two Danish entrepreneurs Lærke Hein and Signe Fischer and a Palestinian activist called George Zeidan in order to open the eyes of the world to the situation of the Palestinians and their limitied freedom of movement.[1]

The 2013 event

The Palestine marathon in 2013 took place on April 21, 2013 with the announced starting time at 8:00 AM from the Manger Square, Bethlehem. The Marathon was held 6 days after the Boston Marathon bombing and many of the runners and organizers met the day before on the Manger Square for a candle light vigil in solidarity with the victims of the Boston Marathon.

Because it was not possible to find a 42 km stretch within the Palestinian Territories without passing through Israeli checkpoints, it was decided to hold the event on an 11 km stretch and then letting the marathon runners run that stretch 4 times. The starting and finishing point was at the Manger Square just opposite the Church of the Nativity and the route went along Manger Street, through the Ayda refugee camp and then along the Jerusalem Hebron Street through the Dheisheh camp and the stretch ended in the city of Al-Khader where the runners made a U-turn to run the same route back towards Manger Square. Along that route the runners were also running just next to the Wall. The marathon runners had to complete the loop two times where the half-marathon runners had to run the loop only one time[2]

In 2013 55 runners completed the marathon run, 116 runners completed the half-marathon run and 230 runners ran the 10 km stretch. The 5 km run wasn't tracked. The majority of the runners were from Palestine (70%) and the remaining were made up from 28 different countries. 37% of the runners were female runners. In the days leading up to the course Israel barred 21 runners from the Gaza Strip to go through Israel to reach the West Bank. One of the barred runners was Majid Abu Maraheel who is a long distance runner and was the Palestinian flag bearer at the 1996 summer olympics in Atlanta.[3][4] The fact that the race was held in Bethlehem which is an Area A city meant that Israeli citizens could not participate.[5]

The 2014 event

The Palestine marathon in 2014 took place Friday April 11, 2014. The starting and finishing point was once again the Manger Square, Bethlehem and the route was covering the same stretch as in 2013.[6] 215 runners were signed up for the full Marathon distance, 422 runners were signed up for the half marathon distance and 2492 runners were signed up for the 10K run. 35% of the runners were women and 39 nationalities were present. One of the runners was the famous photographer Jacob Holdt.

The 2015 event

The Palestine marathon in 2015 took place on March 27 and the route was the same as the two previous years starting from the Manger Square. A total of 3093 participated in the run where 310 were running the Marathon distance and 691 were running the half marathon distance. 39% of the runners were female which is the greatest percentage so far. 49 nationalities were present and a number of members of the Danish parliament were participating in the run including Stine Brix, Pernille Skipper, Jens Joel and Liv Holm Andersen. Unlike the two previous years this time 50 runners from the Gaza strip were allowed to participate in the run and the winner was Nader Al Masri from the Gaza strip.[7][8]

The 2016 event

The Palestine marathon in 2016 took place on April 1 with the same route as the previous years. Support for travel arrangements was provided by Yamsafer. The race had over 4000 participants - the largest number ever, despite participants from Gaza being denied permits to travel to the event, including the winner of the third marathon, Nader al-Masri.[9] The finishing time was the fastest to date, with winner Mervin Steenkamp finishing in 02:35:26, 15 minutes ahead of the second-placed runner.[10]

List of winners of the Palestine Marathon

Edition Date Men's winner Country Time Women's winner Country Time
4th 1 April 2016 Mervin Steenkamp  South Africa 02:35:26 Alicia Saavedra  Sweden 03:30:40
3rd 27 March 2015 Nader al-Masri  Palestine 02:57:14 Maibritt Kristoffersen  Denmark 03:19:26
2nd 11 April 2014 Anders Rømer and Morten Hvidtfeldt  Denmark 02:51:13 Paola Addari  Italy 03:30:13
1st 21 April 2013 Abed El Naser Awajneh  Palestine 03:09:47 Christine Gebler  United States 03:36:37

References

  1. ↑ "Press Release Palestine Marathon 2013" (PDF). Righttomovement.com. Retrieved 2013-04-23.
  2. ↑ http://www.righttomovement.com/race-course
  3. ↑ "Israel Bars Gaza Palestinians From Bethlehem Marathon". al-monitor.com. Retrieved 2013-04-25.
  4. ↑ List of flag bearers for Palestine at the Olympics
  5. ↑ http://www.palestine-primer.com/Palestine_Primer/Permits_ID.html
  6. ↑ http://palestinemarathon.com/media-press
  7. ↑ http://palestinemarathon.com/fact-sheet
  8. ↑ http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Regionale/Oestjylland/2015/03/24/071040.htm
  9. ↑ Omer-Man, Michael. "PHOTOS: Thousands take part in Palestine Marathon for free movement". +972. Retrieved 7 April 2016.
  10. ↑ "Palestine Marathon @ UltimateLIVE". Retrieved 7 April 2016.
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