Athens Classic Marathon Athens Classic Marathon The Athens Classic (authentic) Marathon is an annual marathon road race held in Athens, Greece, normally in early November. The race attracted 43,000 competitors in 2015 of which 16,000 were for the 42.195 km course, both numbers being an all-time record for the event. The rest of the runners competed in the concurrent 5 and 10 kilometres road races and the racewalking contest. The marathon course is based on the legend from which the race gained its name: Pheidippides, a messenger in Ancient Greece, ran from the Battle of Marathon to Athens to announce the Greeks' victory
Marathon celebrate Patriots Day, a holiday marking the beginning of the American Revolution, thereby purposely linking Athenian and American struggle for democracy. The oldest annual marathon in Europe is the Košice Peace Marathon, held since 1924 in Košice, Slovakia. The historic Polytechnic Marathon was discontinued in 1996. The Athens Classic Marathon traces the route of the 1896 Olympic course, starting in Marathon on the eastern coast of Attica, site of the Battle of Marathon of 490 B.C.E., and ending at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens. The Midnight Sun Marathon is held in Tromsø, Norway at 70 degrees north. Using unofficial and