An Amazing Race!
A marathon is a hard race to run. You have to be super fit because you're usually running a distance of a bit over 40 kilometres. If a marathon is a test of how fit a person is, what do you think an ultramarathon is? SPÁRTA, September 2013. An ultramarathon is any running or walking event where the distance is more than that of a marathon (42.2km). Recently, there was an ultramarathon where the distance was an incredible 245.3km...and someone actually won it! The amazing man who won this event - the Spartathlon in Sparta, Greece - is Portuguese runner Joao Oliveira. He took 23 hours, 29 minutes and 8 seconds to cross the finish line. As the winner of the race he received an olive wreath from the organisers and a cup of water from the Evrotas River.
Jurgen Mennel , a German 2010 Spartathlon ultramarathon runnerImage by AFP PHOTO / LOUISA GOULIAMAKI Finishing second two hours later was Germany's 29-year-old Florian Reus in 25:29.54 while third place was taken by last year's winner Stu Thoms in 25:54.49. The first female across the finish line was 39-year-old Szilvia Lubics of Hungary in 28:03.04. She was 12th overall. The race follows the route of Pheidippides, a messenger from Athens sent to Sparta in 490 BC to seek help against the Persians in the Battle of Marathon. The Spartathlon is one of the world's most difficult long-distance races, running over rough tracks, crossing vineyards and olive groves, steep hillsides and, most challenging of all, the 1,200m climb and descent of Mount Parthenio in the dead of night. The race started at the Acropolis in Athens and ended in the southern Greek town of Sparta. 321 runners, including 32 female athletes, from 35 countries started the 31st edition of the race! Wow! What an amazing test of human strength and perseverance! Hats off to all those who took part in this incredible race. A The Whiz Times Presentation. Story by AFP. Featured image by David Harding/Flickr/Creative Commons.
