From November 6 to November 9 the streets of Athens will be overflowing with some 35,000 runners, a record-breaking number of registered participants this year in what makes the country’s largest sporting event in Greece and the biggest in Europe, the “Athens Marathon. The Authentic”, as announced recently by the president of the Hellenic Athletics Federation (SEGAS), which organizes the event, Costas Panagopoulos. Host city Athens will be in the international spotlight for the marathon’s four days of activities, which include the 5K and 10K road races, power walking event, kids race, Special Olympics race and the grand 42,195-meter Marathon Race to be closing the event on November 9, with 13,000 to be running it, out of which 8,000 are Greek athletes. The 5,000 foreign participants this year signify a 35 percent increase from 2013.

In economy terms, the event will greatly benefit Athens, stressed also Mr. Panagopoulos, who underlined that “the foreign participants, together with the thousands of Greek runners and stakeholders, will create significant buying power during the days of the event”.

The Athens Marathon “makes Athens the heart of a tourism wave”, noted the president of SEGAS further. Within the event’s context, Athens will also host the “Athens Marathon Expo 2014 the Authentic on 6-8 November 2014” at the TaeKwonDo Indoor Hall & Exhibition Centre, at Palio Faliro, aiming to promote Greece as a sports tourism destination.