Elche half marathon to go ahead

THE OLDEST half marathon in the world – the International half marathon of El che–will go ahead as planned. T he date of the event is Sunday, October 18, and registration to take part will be available atwww. media maratonelche.com once the state of emergency ends.

The council lo rf or Sports, Vicente Al ber ola, announced that the org anising committee of the Half Marathon City of El che, made up of El che town hall and the Athletics Club‘ Dec atlón’ ,h as decided to keep the date of October 18, which was originally postponed due to the C ovid 19 crisis.

W orld A thletics, an org anisation to which the half marathon will belong from S eptember, is already work ing on the elaboration of a protocol for the races, subject to authorisation by the different administrations. T he International F ederation is work ing with the International Institute of R ace M edicine and different ex perts which include the W orld H ealth O rg anisation and medical representativ es of other federations such as cycling , sk iing , triathlon and rowing .

P articipants enrolled in this edition hav e been automatically reg istered for O ctober 1 8 . T hose who for v arious reasons cannot compete on these dates, may req uest to chang e reg istration for the 4 9 th edition, to be held on M arch 1 4 , 2 0 2 1 , throug h the website.

T he idea of running 2 1 .9 7 k ilometres came in 1 9 6 4 , with the thoug ht of holding a marathon in E lche in two stag es. It was a time when few people ran for a hobby or sport, and in the end the two stag es did not materialise. F inally, in 1 9 6 8 , the half marathon took place. T his distance was not officially recog nised until years later. E lche has hosted the ev ent 4 7 times. It is a town of 2 3 0 ,0 0 0 inhabitants with three W orld H eritag e S ites declared by U NE S C O .