Spartathlon

The Spartathlon aims to trace the footsteps of Pheidippides, an Athenian messenger sent to Sparta in 490 BC to seek help against the Persians in the Battle of Marathon. Pheidippides, according to an account by Greek historian Herodotus, arrived in Sparta the day after he departed.^[3] Herodotus wrote: "On the occasion of which we speak when Pheidippides was sent by the Athenian generals, and, according to his own account, saw Pan on his journey, he reached Sparta on the very next day after quitting the city of Athens."^[4]

Based on this account, John Foden, an officer of the Royal Air Force and a long distance runner, went to Greece in 1982 with four officers to test whether it was possible to cover the nearly 250 kilometres (155 miles) in a day and a half (36 hours).^[4] Three of them were successful in completing the distance: Foden himself in 37 hours and 37 minutes; John Scholtens in 34:30, and John McCarthy in 39:00.^[5] The following year a team of enthusiastic supporters (British, Greek and other nationalities) based at the British Hellenic Chamber of Commerce in Athens and led by Philhellene Michael Callaghan organised the running of the first Open International Spartathlon Race. The event was run under the auspices of SEGAS, the Hellenic Amateur Athletics Association. Forty-four men and one woman from twelve countries were entered into the first Spartathlon in 1983.^[6]

The Spartathlon is usually held around late September. Runners have 36 hours to run 246 kilometres (153 mi), roughly the equivalent of six consecutive marathons, between Athens and Sparti, the site of ancient Sparta. Runners have to deal with the Greek heat in the day, the cold of the night, and the mountainous terrain. There are 75 checkpoints along the way, where runners are disqualified for safety reasons if they fail to meet time cut-offs. Many runners have crews that support them during the race, such as helping them resupply at the checkpoints. Any non-finishers are picked up by a bus and taken to Sparta together.^[3]

The race begins at 7:00 am, roughly when dawn breaks, at the foot of the Acropolis of Athens, near the Odeon of Herodes Atticus and the Agora of Athens.^[3] The runners head westwards and the first major checkpoint is at 80 kilometres (50 mi), at the Corinth Canal on the Isthmus of Corinth that connects the Peloponnese to mainland Greece. Runners then proceed to the site of ancient Corinth.^[3]

Runners ascend the 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) high Sangas mountain pass on Mount Parthenion, and then descend towards Tegea, which is about 200 kilometres (120 mi) from the start of the race. According to Herodotus, Pheidippides had a vision of Pan at Tegea, in what may be the first recorded case of exercise-induced hallucination. The rest of the race is a 50 kilometres (31 mi) downhill segment to the town of Sparta.^[3]

The end of the race is a statue of Leonidas I, the Spartan king who died at the Battle of Thermopylae fighting the Persians ten years after Marathon, which is placed at the end of the main street in Sparta. Runners who finish the race receive a laurel wreath and water from schoolgirls dressed in chitons, and have access to medical tents. The national anthem of the winner is also played.^[3]

No monetary award is given to any of the finishers, but winning the race is considered prestigious and generates publicity that is helpful in attracting sponsors. Unlike Pheidippides, none of the runners have to make the return run back to Athens.^[3]

In order to run in this race an individual must have recently performed at least one of a number of qualifying feats, such as:

• Finishing a race of at least 100 km (62 mi) in less than 10 hours (male) or 10 hours 30 minutes (female).
• Competing in an event of more than 200 km (120 mi) and completing it in less than 29 hours (male) or 30 hours (female).
• Competing in Spartathlon within the two previous years and overcoming the mountain to reach the Nestani checkpoint at 172 km (107 mi) in less than 24 hours 30 minutes.

The criteria have been tightened at least once in the past and a ballot introduced, since the increasing prestige of the race and the gradual increase in the number of qualifying athletes mean that it is now always oversubscribed; however, elite athletes who can exceed the criteria by a large margin (25%, formerly 20%) are able to avoid the ballot and qualify automatically. Entries are now capped at 400 each year with non-automatic qualifiers chosen through a lottery system.

Camille Herron set a new women's course record in 2023 with a time of 22h 35min 31s, an improvement of 2h 12min 53s under the previous course record set by Patrycja Bereznowska in 2017. She became the first woman to run under 24 hours and placed third overall, the second time a woman has placed on the overall podium. She led 3 women under 24 hours and into the top 10 overall for the first time in the race's history. Mary Larsson holds the record for most wins by a woman with 5 wins.

Fotis Zisimopoulos set a new men's course record in 2023 with a time of 19h 55min 2s, the first runner under 20 hours and his third win. Yiannis Kouros holds the most wins by a man with four wins. In 2005, he decided to trace the steps of Pheidippides completely and ran—out of competition—the Athens–Sparta–Athens distance.

Hubert Karl of Germany holds the record for most finishes with 23. András Lőw of Hungary meanwhile holds the record for most consecutive finishes with 19.

In 2017, the 35th anniversary competition had a record 264 finishers under the 36-hour cut-off time. In 2018, the later stages of the race were substantially disrupted by the Medicane Zorbas, though almost all runners capable of finishing within the cut-off time were eventually able to do so.

Following are the winners of the Spartathlon:

Men

Year	1st	Nationality	Time	2nd	Nationality	Time	3rd	Nationality	Time
1983	Yiannis Kouros	Greece	21:53:42	Dušan Mravlje [sl]	Yugoslavia	24:40:38	Alan Fairbrother	United Kingdom	27:39:14
1984	Yiannis Kouros	Greece	20:25:00	Dušan Mravlje [sl]	Yugoslavia	23:44:00	Patrick Macke	United Kingdom	24:32:05
1985	Patrick Macke	United Kingdom	23:18:00	Dušan Mravlje [sl]	Yugoslavia	24:39:22	Jean Calbera	France	24:42:00
1986	Yiannis Kouros	Greece	21:57:00	Ernő Kis-Király	Hungary	26:07:00	Peter Mann	Germany	26:41:00
1987	Rune Larsson [sv]	Sweden	24:41:46	Patrick Macke	United Kingdom	26:41:51	James Zarei	United Kingdom	27:27:16
1988	Rune Larsson [sv]	Sweden	24:42:05	James Zarei	Iran	25:59:42	Georges Makris	Greece	26:47:00
1989	Patrick Macke	United Kingdom	24:32:05	Rune Larsson [sv]	Sweden	25:28:48	Seiichi Morikawa	Japan	26:08:18
1990	Yiannis Kouros	Greece	20:29:04	Patrick Macke	United Kingdom	23:08:41	János Bogár	Hungary	24:49:19
1991	János Bogár	Hungary	24:15:31	James Zarei	United Kingdom	26:48:50	George Stoakes	United Kingdom	30:50:35
1992[7]	Rusko Kadiev [bg]	Bulgaria	24:08:13	Paul Beckers [nl]	Belgium	25:05:48	Roy Pirrung	United States	28:33:02
1993[8][9]	Rune Larsson [sv]	Sweden	25:57:12	Marcel Foucat	France	27:46:37	Milan Furin	Slovakia	28:51:37
1994	James Zarei	United Kingdom	26:15:00	Kenji Okiyama	Japan	25:55:00	Peeter Kirppu	Estonia	26:07:00
1995	James Zarei	United Kingdom	25:59:42	Vasilios Chalkias	Greece	27:49:46	Kazuyoshi Ikeda	Japan	28:12:00
1996	Roland Vuillemenot [fr]	France	26:21:00	Dušan Mravlje [sl]	Slovenia	27:55:00	Roy Pirrung	United States	27:56:32
1997	Constantinos Reppos	Greece	23:37:00	Kenji Okiyama	Japan	25:55:00	Rune Larsson [sv]	Sweden	28:11:00
1998	Constantinos Reppos	Greece	25:11:41	Kenzi (Kenji) Okiyama	Japan	26:13:13	James Zarei	United Kingdom	26:44:04
1999	Jens Lukas	Germany	25:38:03	Jean Pierre Guyomarch [fr]	France	27:08:57	Jun Onoki	Japan	27:16:36
2000	Masayuki Ohtaki (Otaki, Ōtaki)	Japan	24:01:10	Jens Lukas	Germany	24:59:54	Cees Verhagen	Netherlands	25:35:50
2001	Valmir Nunes	Brazil	23:18:05	Jens Lukas	Germany	24:46:51	Ryōichi Sekiya	Japan	25:27:30
2002	Ryōichi Sekiya	Japan	23:47:54	Markus Thalmann [de]	Austria	25:16:56	Jeffry Oonk	Netherlands	26:58:55
2003	Markus Thalmann [de]	Austria	23:28:24	Valmir Nunes	Brazil	25:30:35	Jean-Jacques Moros	France	26:26:16
2004	Jens Lukas	Germany	25:49:59	Markus Thalmann [de]	Austria	26:20:02	Martin Juri	Australia	27:19:15
2005	Jens Lukas	Germany	24:20:39	Jean-Jacques Moros	France	25:03:30	Markus Thalmann [de]	Austria	26:34:42
2006	Scott Jurek	United States	22:52:18	Ryōichi Sekiya	Japan	24:14:11	Masayuki Ohtaki (Otaki, Ōtaki)	Japan	25:19:12
2007	Scott Jurek	United States	23:12:14	Piotr Kuryło [pl]	Poland	24:29:41	Valmir Nunes	Brazil	25:37:40
2008	Scott Jurek	United States	22:20:01	Markus Thalmann [de]	Austria	24:52:09	Lars Skytte Christoffersen	Denmark	25:29:41
2009	Ryōichi Sekiya	Japan	23:48:24	Lars Skytte Christoffersen	Denmark	24:32:00	Jon Harald Berge	Norway	25:10:00
2010	Ivan Cudin [it]	Italy	23:03:06	Jan Albert Lantink	Netherlands	23:31:00	Jan Prochaska	Germany	24:56:00
2011	Ivan Cudin [it]	Italy	22:57:40	Yuji Sakai	Japan	24:22:24	Michael Vanicek	Germany	24:55:59
2012	Stu Thoms	Germany	26:28:19[10]	Tetsuo Kiso	Japan	26:36:23	Markus Thalmann [de]	Austria	27:14:25
2013	João Oliveira	Portugal	23:28:31	Florian Reus [de]	Germany	25:29:11	Ivan Cudin [it]	Italy	25:53:44
2014	Ivan Cudin [it]	Italy	22:27:57	Florian Reus [de]	Germany	23:56:19	Andrzej Radzikowski	Poland	25:48:25
2015	Florian Reus [de]	Germany	23:16:44	Dan Lawson	United Kingdom	23:53:05	Hansen Kim	Denmark	23:53:52
2016	Andrzej Radzikowski	Poland	23:02:23	Marco Bonfiglio	Italy	23:36:58	Radek Brunner [cs]	Czech Republic	24:07:29
2017	Aleksandr Sorokin	Lithuania	22:04:04	Radek Brunner [cs]	Czech Republic	22:49:37	Nikolaos Sideridis	Greece	22:58:40
2018	Yoshihiko Ishikawa	Japan	22:55:13	Radek Brunner [cs]	Czech Republic	23:37:25	João Oliveira	Portugal	24:34:30
2019	Bódis Tamás	Hungary	23:29:24	Csécsei Zoltán	Hungary	24:16:59	Radek Brunner [cs]	Czech Republic	24:26:20
2021	Fotis Zisimopoulos [el]	Greece	21:57:36	Radek Brunner [cs]	Czech Republic	23:17:49	Milan Sumny	Czech Republic	23:53:19
2022	Fotis Zisimopoulos [el]	Greece	21:00:48	Toru Somiya	Japan	21:18:04	Yoshihiko Ishikawa	Japan	23:06:45
2023	Fotis Zisimopoulos [el]	Greece	19:55:09 (Course Record)	Simen Holvik	Norway	22:17:23	Fernando Andres Martinez Roman	Uruguay	23:32:59

Women

^[11]

Time = hours:minutes:seconds

Year	1st	Nationality	Time	2nd	Nationality	Time	3rd	Nationality	Time
1983	Eleanor Robinson (formerly Adams)	United Kingdom	32:37:52	—	—	—	—	—	—
1984	Mary Hanudel (later Mary Larsson [sv])	United States	30:27:00	Marcy Schwam Lorna Richey (later Lorna Michael)	United States  United States	34:15:10	—	—	—
1985	Mary Hanudel (later Mary Larsson [sv])	United States	34:10	—	—	—	—	—	—
1986	Mary Hanudel (later Mary Larsson [sv])	United States	31:46:45	Waltraud Reisert	Germany	33:21:00	—	—	—
1987	Hilary Walker	United Kingdom	31:23:30	Waltraud Reisert	Germany	35:31:56	-	-	-
1988	—
1989	Mary Hanudel (later Mary Larsson [sv])	United States	31:57:23	Monika Kuno	Germany	34:10:00	Eiko Endo	Japan	34:36:49
1990	Anne-Marie Deguilhem	France	34:07:41	Pascale Mahé [fr]	France	35:08:03	Mary Hanudel-Larsson [sv]	United States	35:31:30
1991	Ursula Blasberg	Germany	34:42:45	—	—	—	—	—	—
1992	Hilary Walker	United Kingdom	31:23:30	Mary Hanudel-Larsson [sv]	United States	33:47:00	Miyako Yoshikoshi	Japan	33:47:52
1993	Sigrid Lomsky	Germany	32:46:17	Marie Bertrand [fr]	France	33:47:12	Miyako Yoshikoshi	Japan	34:18:00
1994	Helga Backhaus	Germany	30:39:00	Kazuko Kaihata	Japan	34:12:17	Miyako Yoshikoshi	Japan	34:33:21
1995	Helga Backhaus	Germany	29:33:00	Miyako Yoshikoshi	Japan	33:47:52	Kimie Funada (later Kimie Noto)	Japan	34:53:34
1996	Helga Backhaus	Germany	29:50:00	Mary Hanudel [sv]	United States	30:27:00	Kimie Funada (later Kimie Noto)	Japan	34:12:00
1997	Helga Backhaus	Germany	30:39:00	Kimie Funada (later Kimie Noto)	Japan	33:36:00	Heike Pawzik	Germany	33:46:00
1998	Mary Larsson [sv]	Sweden	28:46.58	Kimie Funada (later Kimie Noto)	Japan	29:32:21	Helga Backhaus	Germany	29:53:49
1999	Anny Monot	France	35:38:08	Kimie Funada (later Kimie Noto)	Japan	35:41:31	—	—	—
2000	Hiroko Okiyama	Japan	29:16:37	Mary Larsson [sv]	United States	30:56:16	Helga Backhaus	Germany	31:35:24
2001	Alzira Portela-Lario	Portugal	30:31:41	Kimie Funada (later Kimie Noto)	Japan	33:49:17	Heike Pawzik	Germany	34:41:10
2002	Irina Reutovich [ru]	Russia	28:10:48	Hiroko Okiyama	Japan	30:25:49	Mayumi Okabe	Japan	31:33:35
2003	Akiko Sakamoto	Japan	29:07:44	Sumie Inagaki	Japan	29:38:54	Barbara Szlachetka	Germany	31:50:23
2004	Kimie Noto	Japan	29:57:40	Hiroko Okiyama	Japan	31:01:17	Anke Drescher	Germany	32:55:26
2005	Kimie Noto	Japan	30:23:07	Elke Streicher	Germany	32:19:59	Anke Drescher	Germany	32:52:23
2006	Sumie Inagaki	Japan	28:37:20	Takako Furuyama	Japan	31:40:31	Mary Larsson-Hanudel [sv]	United States	31:41:56
2007	Akiko Sakamoto	Japan	31:09:24	Brigitte Bec [fr]	France	31:56:03	Kimie Noto	Japan	32:11:05
2008	Sook-Hue Hur	South Korea	30:03:22	Stacey Bunton	United States	31:25:59	Heinlein Marika	Germany	31:39:19
2009	Sumie Inagaki	Japan	27:39:49	Yoshiko Matsuda	Japan	31:16:00	Lisa Bliss	United States	32:27:00
2010	Emily Gelder	United Kingdom	30:17:03	Heather Fouwdlink-Hawker	United Kingdom	32:43:00	Yoshiko Matsuda	Japan	33:31:00
2011	Szilvia Lubics [hu]	Hungary	29:07:39	Ruth Podgornik Res	Slovenia	32:17:19	Mimi Anderson	United Kingdom	32:33:23
2012	Elizabeth Hawker (also 3rd overall that year)[3]	United Kingdom	27:02:17[10]	Leonie van den Haak	Netherlands	28:42:36	Szilvia Lubics [hu]	Hungary	29:45:56
2013	Szilvia Lubics [hu]	Hungary	28:03:04	Antje Krause	Germany	30:07:15	Heike Bergmann	Germany	30:22:03
2014	Szilvia Lubics [hu]	Hungary	26:53:40	Katalin Nagy	United States	28:55:03	Eva Esnaola	Spain	30:52:41
2015	Katalin Nagy	United States	25:06:05	Alyson Venti	United States	26:50:51	Szilvia Lubics [hu]	Hungary	29:18:44
2016	Katalin Nagy	United States	25:22:26	Smith Pam	United States	27:11:53	Zsuzsanna Maraz	Hungary	27:44:01
2017	Patrycja Bereznowska	Poland	24:48:18	Zsuzsanna Maraz	Hungary	25:43:40	Aleksandra Niwińska [pl]	Poland	26:28:48
2018	Zsuzsanna Maraz	Hungary	27:05:28	Kateřina Kašparová	Czech Republic	27:47:16	Teija Honkonen	Finland	28:36:08
2019	Zsuzsanna Maraz	Hungary	30:16:18	Irina Masanova	Russia	31:18:08	Natasa Robnik	Slovenia	32:15:31
2021	Diana Dzaviza	Latvia	25:24:25	Zsuzsanna Maraz	Hungary	26:00:14	Noora Honkala	Finland	26:27:14
2022	Diana Dzaviza	Latvia	25:03:07	Marisa Lizak	United States	25:34:00	Mica Morgan	United States	27:23:44
2023	Camille Herron	United States	22:35:31 (Course Record)	Noora Honkala	Finland	23:23:03	Satu Lipiainen	Finland	23:48:34

All-Time top 50 Women's performances

All-time top 50 Men's performances

^[12][13]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Spartathlon.

• Official Website for Spartathlon
• John Foden's article on how the Spartathlon has changed over the years
• John Foden's article on time spent at refreshment points
• Spartathlon Part 1 (1982) – The Birth
• Spartathlon Part 2 (1983) – The First Race