Marathons With Olympic Finishes
There is something very special about the Olympics. It is always great to see the world’s best athletes competing against each for personal achievements and national pride. In my travels, I always enjoy going by the Summer Olympic stadiums in various cities to see the places where these great events took place. To that end, I thought it would be a good idea to find all the marathons that had Olympic finishes. These are marathons that finish at or in Olympic stadiums.
I posted this several months ago, but with the upcoming fall marathon season, I thought it might be good to revisit some of these in case you are trying to figure out a good marathon.
Olympic Stadium in Athens
It is always a cool time when running towards the finish line of a marathon. It always seems a bit cooler when the finish line is at someplace like a football stadium (Illinois Marathon) or baseball stadium (Akron Marathon) since it can fit so many people and they are all cheering us as we enter the stadium. It kicks it up to a whole different level when you enter an Olympic stadium to finish your marathon! It gives you the opportunity to experience what the world’s greatest runners experience, but on a different scale. Try running one of these races to get that feeling!
You’re missing Melbourne marathon in your list. It ends at MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) which was the centrepiece stadium back in 1956 olympics. It doesn’t follow the olympic marathon course but finishes in the same stadium.
Which one of those have you done or plan to do?
Of the ones you listed, the only one I’ve ran is Athens classic marathon and absolutely loved it! It ends at Panathinaiko stadium which is all-marble and was in use during the 1896 games. Quite historic. It was my first marathon and loved it.
Thanks – I had compared maps with Olympic parks and I was going by a different olympic stadium since I didn’t catch the name change. Updated! I have actually not done any yet, I may be able to do Helsinki this year and would like to add Amsterdam at some point as well. Doing Athens Marathon at all has to be a blast, doing it as your first makes the other marathons have an impossible task to compete with that!
Part of the reason I chose that as my first is because I thought that race would be my last… until I crossed the finish line and got the marathon bug! 😉
Not quite the same, but the Sevilla Marathon starts and finishes inside the Olympic stadium that was built for their (Olympic) bids to the 2004 and 2008 Olympics. It is a really nice course that I would highly recommend. And who knows, maybe someday the Olympics WILL go there and you can say you ran it first 🙂
That sounds great! I will definitely have to check it out. The truth is, I just love the stadium atmosphere upon finishing – makes me feel faster than I am! 🙂
Here’s my race report if you’d like the nitty gritty: http://www.50by25.com/2013/02/race-report-sevilla-marathon-part-1.html