17 000 participants from all over the world and four records of Ukraine: on October 5-6 Kyiv hosted the anniversary 10th Wizz Air Kyiv City Marathon

On October 5-6 Kyiv hosted the anniversary 10th international marathon 10th Wizz Air Kyiv City Marathon, which brought together over 17 000 runners from Ukraine and abroad. For the first time in the history of Kyiv marathon the event took place over the course of two days and at two locations: some races took place at the Expocenter of Ukraine (VDNG), and the others started from Sofiiska square. Four records of Ukraine were set during the event.

The winner on the main course of Kyiv marathon (42.195 km) among men is Oleksandr Babaryka, who finished the course in 02:28:57. The winner among women running the marathon distance is Natalia Semenovych, the winner of Vilnius marathon of 2018 and 2019, who finished 42.195 km in 02:51:38.

From the very beginning of the race Oleksandr Babaryka got ahead of his potential rivals – elite runners Volodymyr Vaskiv and Oleksandr Bondarenko. He finally secured his first position around Patona Bridge after 14 km and kept it till the very finish line, outrunning his rivals by more than 4 minutes. The silver medalist is Yevhen Derbenov with the result of 02:33:09, and the bronze medalist is Andrii Bolsunovskyi with the result of 02:38:52. Artem Piddubnyi, the champion of Kyiv marathon in 2017 and 2018, couldn’t take part in the race because of trauma.

“My main goal was to win, which I did. I was hoping for a better result, but it didn’t work out. Probably, I haven’t completely recovered from the trauma, and the weather and cold wind also took their toll. There is something to work on and improve my result”, – said Oleksandr Babaryka.

There was a fierce competition among women throughout the whole course. Keeping the “calm pace” throughout the course, Natalia Semenovych was in the lead, but last year’s winner Yuliia Tarasova didn’t let her get away and kept close running with a group of men and waiting for a good moment.

At the end of the course Natalia Semenovych managed to get away from the group of runners Yuliia Tarasova was running with, and she kept her first place among women till the end of the race finishing with the result 02:51:38. The second and third places were taken by Yuliia Tarasova and Olena Symonok with the results of 02:55:53 and 3:00:46 respectively.

“My impressions are just great, because I really wanted to win, and I did it. I am really grateful to Run Ukraine and Iryna Lishchynska for inviting me and the high european level of organization of the race”, – shared Natalia Semenovych, the winner on the marathon course among women.

The winner on the half marathon course among men is Oleksandr Sitkovskyi, the most titled marathon runner in Ukraine. It took him 1:05:38 to finish the 21.0975 km course.

The winner among women on the half marathon course if Kateryna Karmanenko with the result of 1:25:36.

“The anniversary Wizz Air Kyiv City Marathon became the largest and the most grandiose running event in the history of Ukraine. We brought together 17 000 runners, over one thousand volunteers, organizers, contractors, fans… I am convinced that this fantastic sports event will divide the running history of Ukraine into “before” and “after”, – says Dmytro Chernitskyi, the General Manager of Run Ukraine. – We would like to thank every participant, every person in the audience, every volunteer, our partners and sponsors, city authorities and community services, anyone and everyone who has ever done anything to help us create Kyiv marathon. We created Wizz Air Kyiv City Marathon together, we wrote this story together. And we will keep writing it”.

The anniversary 10th Wizz Air Kyiv City Marathon included races for the runners of various level of training, from 3 to 42 km. On October 5 participants of Eldorado Run 10 km and charity courses Veteran’s Ten 10 km and Rexona Mini Marathon 4.2 km started from Sofiiska square. The next day, on Sunday, participants of Wizz Air Kyiv City Marathon 42.195 km, Under Armour Half Marathon 21.0975 km, and participants of the charity Avon Pink Run 3 km started from the same location.

The rest of the races took place on October 5 at the Expocenter of Ukraine (VDNG). There was a family race and children’s races on the courses of 100 m, 400 m, 800 m, 1500 m. Thanks to cooperation between Run Ukraine and the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, participation in all children’s races was free. There was a total of almost 1,000 children participating in these races.

This year for the first time in the history of Kyiv marathon there was a dog walk Dog Chow ® Walk 3 km and a race with dogs Dog Chow ® Run 5 km. There was a total of more than a hundred runners participating on these courses with their four-legged friends.

The prize fund of Kyiv marathon in 2019 was increased by 40% and amounted to 204 400 UAH.

During the 10th Wizz Air Kyiv City Marathon 2019 there were four records of Ukraine set:

the runner Oleh Safronov ran the marathon with his triplets
Maryna Saienko finished the half marathon with a boy diagnosed with cerebral palsy.
cyborg-runner Tetiana Vorotilina finished the half marathon course on a prosthesis.
the runner Ivan Yefanov, who started his race from Odesa on September 26, finished his ultramarathon, overcoming 542 km in 11 days, the last 42 kilometers of which were the marathon course of Kyiv marathon.

Kyiv marathon takes place in Kyiv for the tenth time. It took place for the first time on October 16, 2010, bringing together 546 participants from 13 countries. In ten years it has grown tenfold: on October 5-6 there were over 17,000 participants on the courses of the 10th Wizz Air Kyiv City Marathon, which makes it the largest mass sports event in the history of independent Ukraine. There were about 9,000 Kyiv residents and over 7,000 guests from other cities of Ukraine.

There were also people from abroad coming to Kyiv to participate in the race, there were 917 participants from 61 countries, to be exact. The most number of runners came from Belarus (110), Poland (100), Germany (90). There were many runners from the USA (81), the Great Britain (59) and other countries. There was even a runner from Uruguay participating in Kyiv marathon. There were people of various age on the courses of Kyiv marathon: the oldest registered participant was 79 years old, and the youngest was only a few months old.

The scale of the event is measured not only by the number of participants, but also by the number of people involved in its organization. Over the course of two days there were 1,220 volunteers involved in organization of Kyiv marathon. During the event there were 29 ambulance vehicles, 68 representatives of the Red Cross and Malteser Relief Service, 14 MotoHelp crews.

265 patrol policemen and 18 representatives of the Municipal Guard took care of the traffic ensuring timely closing and opening of streets for traffic along the route.

The constant title sponsor of Kyiv marathon since 2014 is the Hungarian airline company Wizz Air, which supports running events in various countries of the world. Wizz Air Kyiv City Marathon is the largest event of this powerful network of races.

“We are very glad to be a part of this grandiose sports event in Kyiv for the sixth time. Our participation in the marathon confirms our loyalty to Ukraine and Ukrainian market as well as support of healthy lifestyle. We are very glad to see that this weekend there were almost 17,000 participants from all over the world. Our company believes that we improve the lives of people by giving them a chance to travel at low prices and maintain healthy lifestyle. We love running and this year our company representatives came to Kyiv to participate in the anniversary marathon. We support everyone who ran today and hope that those of you who couldn’t make it today would join us next year”, – said Denise Filip, the marketing manager of Wizz Air.

This year the participants were running along the new course. The main marathon route started at the location between the two bell towers: Sofiiskyi cathedral and Mykhailivskyi Monastery of Golden Domes. The route went through the most beautiful sights of the capital city of Ukraine – Golden Gates, National Opera of Ukraine, NSC Olimpiiskyi and Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra – and three bridges: Patona, Pedestrian and Pivnichnyi.

There was a 1+1 TV presenter Marichka Padalko (42 km), TV presenter, the “Bachelor” Nikita Dobrynin, UA:Pershyi TV presenter Viacheslav Matiukhin, “Priamyi” TV presenter Slava Varda, writer Mari Karachyna, TV presenter and showman Artem Haharin, judge of the “Top Model po-ukrainsky” Serhii Nikitiuk, Anatolii Anatolich – “The Interviewer”, and Miss Ukraine Viktoriya Kiose (42 km) along with other runners on various courses of the event.

The route of the marathon race of Wizz Air Kyiv City Marathon has been certified by AIMS, which means that the results of this race may be used as qualification for the great marathon majors.

For the first time in the history of national races the 10th Wizz Air Kyiv City Marathon became the qualification race in the Abbott World Marathon Majors (AbbottWMM) Wanda Age Group World Rankings. The results of all runners older than 40 will be included in the world rankings of the second qualification period, which is to take place from September 30, 2019 through October 11, 2020. The fastest runners will have the chance to participate in the world championship AbbottWMM Wanda Age Group World Championship in the spring of 2021.

Over the time of its existence Kyiv marathon has raised more than 5,100,000 UAH for charity. Starting in 2014, every year Kyiv marathon includes charity races.

This year there were four charity courses:

50% of the funds raised at Avon Pink Run 3 km will be spent on the purchase of mammography equipment for one of the regional hospitals.
Participants of Rexona Mini Marathon 4.2 km joined fundraising for kids with cancer – the wards of “Tabletochky” fund.
Participants of races with dogs Dog Chow ® Walk and Dog Chow ® Run were raising funds for dog vaccination in the shelters of Kyiv region.

For the second time the 10th Wizz Air Kyiv City Marathon included the race for veterans of ATO/JFO “Veteran’s Ten”, where there were 300 combatants from the east of Ukraine, military men and volunteers participating in it.

This year the traditional charity Fundraising Marathon included thirteen charity funds raising funds for various social projects. The “Fundraising Marathon” also included celebrity fundraisers: TV presenter and blogger Yanina Sokolova, TV presenter of the 8th season of “Zvazheni i Shchaslyvi” Myroslava Ulianina, actress Tetiana Honcharova, М1 TV presenter Valeriia Kuk, topmodel Anna Anders, TV presenter, activist in a wheelchair Uliana Pcholkina.

We would like to remind that the 10th Wizz Air Kyiv City Marathon is one of six stages of the Run Ukraine Running League 2019, which includes races in five cities of Ukraine: Kyiv, Dnipro, Lviv, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia. The League was created for amateur runners, after the end of the race the winners among men and women will be determined. The absolute winners of the Run Ukraine Running League 2019 will get monetary rewards in the amount of 20 000 UAH among men and women respectively.