For the American two-time world record holder Khalid Khannouchi it was an“incredible charge of energy and great atmosphere enjoyed by everyone”, for Kevin Lee, Director of the“Wisdom Sports” agency that organizes 30 marathons in China, it was a“city festival”, for Predrag Tasovac, Director of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra it was a“great artistic and sporting event, because people shared the most beautiful emotions”.
For the participants of CorD Charity Masters, a humanitarian race that has been held regularly for 12 years, it was another day filled with positive emotion.
Over 100 runners from various countries, diplomatic missions, friendly companies and readers gathered at the start of the race to earn money for those most in need with every kilometre they covered
Over 27,000 participants ran the marathon, half-marathon or the 5km Pleasure Race along the streets, boulevards and bridges of Belgrade, on Saturday, 21 April – 7,300 runners from 73 countries took part in the marathon, half-marathon and half-marathon relay races, while organizer and police estimates indicate there were just over 20,000 runners for pleasure.
All of them were followed by the applause of Belgrade’s citizens along the entire track, with drummers, horn orchestras and DJs cheering them on from a dozen concert stages. However, the real hit was the Belgrade Philharmonic on the Ada Bridge, welcoming and sending off the runners with the music of Vivaldi.
CorD had representatives in nearly all categories, while our Neda Lukić, Editorial Manager, ran the whole 21 kilometres!
The sports winners of the marathon were the runners Kristijan Tošić (2:45.23) and Nora Trklja (3:08.46), and the half-marathon was won by competitors from our neighbourhood – the Macedonian Dario Ivanovski (1:08.03) and Croatian Matea Matošević (1:18.47).
Member of the Vranje marathon runners Kristijan Tošić is the first Serbian athlete to win the marathon since the 2nd Belgrade Marathon in 1989. Dario Ivanovski defended his title of winner of the half-marathon on the new track, beating the record he set last year, while Matea Matošević, running in Belgrade for the first time, beat last year’s record set by the Montenegrin Slađana Perunović.
