Palestine Marathon
| Palestine Marathon | |
|---|---|
| Date | April |
| Location | Bethlehem, Palestine |
| Event type | Road |
| Distance | Marathon |
| Primary sponsor | None |
| Established | 2013 |
| Official site | www.palestinemarathon.org |
The Palestine Marathon is an annual road running event, including races over the marathon, half marathon, 10 km and 5 km distances, that takes place on the streets of Bethlehem, Palestine. It was held for the first time on April 21, 2013 and had approximately 700 participants. The idea to organize a marathon in Bethlehem was originally conceived by two Danish entrepreneurs Lærke Hein and Signe Fischer and a Palestinian activist called George Zeidan in order to open the eyes of the world to the situation of the Palestinians and their limitied freedom of movement.
The Palestine marathon in 2013 took place on April 21, 2013 with the announced starting time at 8:00 AM from the Manger Square, Bethlehem. The Marathon was held 6 days after the Boston Marathon bombing and many of the runners and organizers met the day before on the Manger Square for a candle light vigil in solidarity with the victims of the Boston Marathon.
Because it was not possible to find a 42 km stretch within the Palestinian Territories without passing through Israeli checkpoints, it was decided to hold the event on an 11 km stretch and then letting the marathon runners run that stretch 4 times. The starting and finishing point was at the Manger Square just opposite the Church of the Nativity and the route went along Manger Street, through the Ayda refugee camp and then along the Jerusalem Hebron Street through the Dheisheh camp and the stretch ended in the city of Al-Khader where the runners made a U-turn to run the same route back towards Manger Square. Along that route the runners were also running just next to the Wall. The marathon runners had to complete the loop two times where the half-marathon runners had to run the loop only one time
In 2013 55 runners completed the marathon run, 116 runners completed the half-marathon run and 230 runners ran the 10 km stretch. The 5 km run wasn't tracked. The majority of the runners were from Palestine (70%) and the remaining were made up from 28 different countries. 37% of the runners were female runners. In the days leading up to the course Israel barred 21 runners from the Gaza Strip to go through Israel to reach the West Bank. One of the barred runners was Majid Abu Maraheel who is a long distance runner and was the Palestinian flag bearer at the 1996 summer olympics in Atlanta. The fact that the race was held in Bethlehem which is an Area A city meant that Israeli citizens could not participate.
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Wikipedia