The 3rd International Chisinau Marathon in Moldova
With its unique perspective on world sports, GSN is well aware of the staggering number of international sporting events taking place all year round. Also, our founder Dan Thompson is engaged in the amazing Run the World challenge (read his blog here), so we decided to publish a series of articles on sporting events held in all of the world’s countries – from Greatest Sporting Nation to Greatest Sporting Participation!
The first in our series is about the forthcoming Chisinau Marathon, in small but sporty Moldova.
By David Lutsyk
The Third International Chisinau Marathon in Moldova
Over the last few decades, the cult of healthy living has become increasingly popular all over the world. Marathon runs are one way of popularizing sport, with races held every year in almost all of the world’s major cities.
In 2015, Moldovan NGO Sporter came forward with an initiative to foster the tradition of holding an annual international marathon in Chisinau, the Republic of Moldova’s capital, where a full marathon was first held back in 1986.
The First International Chisinau Marathon organised by Sporter was run on 26 April 2015, and it gathered 10,000 runners from 30 countries. Both amateur and professional athletes participated in races over the full marathon course (42 km 195 m), the half marathon (21 km 0975 m), 10 km and 3 km.
All finishers in the Chisinau Marathon received a medal executed in traditional style with a pixelated logo design on it. The pixel design was not a random choice. Traditional patterns on Moldovan carpets bear geometric motifs, which in computer graphics turned into plain pixels. The colours of the logo also linked to Moldova, being the national colours of blue, yellow, and red.
One year later, on 17 April 2016, the second edition of the International Chisinau Marathon took place, and it was included in the AIMS (Association of International Marathons and Distance Races) programme. It was a record edition with over 15,000 runners, over the same four courses as a year before. The British Embassy in Moldova offered support to the race, and the ambassador himself ran the 10 km race. Athletes from 50 countries participated in the event.
This year, Sporter will again organize the International Chisinau Marathon with support from AIMS. The race was postponed to the autumn, since spring is quite hot in sunny Moldova, and the set date is 1 October 2017.The number of courses has increased. The participants can choose to run the full marathon distance of 42 km 195 m, the half-marathon distance of 21 km 0975 m, 10 km, 5 km or the 1.5 km Fun Run. The races will start at 09:00 am local time on Chisinau’s Great National Assembly Square. The Chisinau Marathon is a Boston Marathon qualifying race. Registration is now open at www.marathon.md.
Beside running events, Sporter is busy organizing other events in cycling, open water swimming, free diving and triathlon. The sporter.md web site is the most visited sports site in Moldova, with a total of over 12,000 subscribers. Sports news, event calendars, reports on sporting events held locally and abroad with media support from Sporter – all of these are published daily on the website.
As part of Sporter, the ‘Sporter Club’ sports club offers training for running, cycling, swimming and diving. Sporter also organizes the Sporter Travel trips outside Moldova to participate in running, swimming and cycling events, and in international triathlon races and marathons.
Over the last 3 years, Sporter has considerably changed the lives of Moldovans, by bringing many of them in touch with sports and helping them lead a healthy lifestyle. All this is being done for the good of society, not for financial or material benefit, and only for the promotion of sport at the domestic level.
