Marathon

Valencia by the numbers

Winner of the women's 21km at the Valencia Marathon, Ethiopia's Genzebe Dibaba, crosses the finish line on Sunday, December 6, 2020.

One of their highest-profile events in recent years has been the Valencia Trinidad Alfonso Marathon, now rated as one of the world’s fastest and best city marathons and tomorrow’s edition, which will be live-streamed to Africa through SPNAfrica from 08h00 CET (07h00 GMT) through this link, is likely to prove no exception, with the masses returning to join the elites in a morning of physical exertion and fun.

Valencia was founded as a Roman colony by the consul Decimus Callaicus in 138 BC and today the Spanish east coast port city flourishes on festivals, conventions and tourist activities.

While COVID capped total participants at half of the hoped-for 32 000, the numbers for the 2021 edition of the marathon are impressive.

An expected 16 000 will line up at the start, including three athletes boasting marathon best times of faster than 2 hrs 04 min and no fewer than fifteen faster than 2 hrs 07 min and six women with times faster than 2 hrs 24 min.

The race budget is a whopping 4.4 million Euros with the first male and female finishers set to earn 75 000 Euros apiece.

But the numbers are not just about the elite, with runners taking part from 108 countries, despite COVID travel bans in place from some corners of the world. And these are just some of the numbers associated with tomorrow’s race:

2 field hospitals will be set up for the event and there will be 20 ambulances distributed along the route
6 Farmacia Ribera rapid assistance points with Vaseline and analgesic spray
8 hours free travel on EMT Valencia buses on the day of the race
10 sizes of New Balance t-shirt options for runners to choose the one that best suits them
12 refreshment stations along the route, 10 with Aquabona and Powerade and 2 Red Points to hand out Enervit gels
18 years, 1 month and 28 days is the age of the youngest person who is going to run coming straight from Sweden
30 doctors to attend to possible health incidents, of which 18 are anaesthesiologists. To these are added 9 more doctors who will be running but will attend to anyone who needs them and 5 skaters with defibrillators
35 sponsors.
44 accredited media outlets
83 this is the age of the oldest runner in the race who will come to run from Italy.
100 kilos of ice for cold water baths installed in the field hospitals
108 nationalities represented.
112 Ecoembes rubbish containers.
168 square metres, the size of the largest advertisement for the event, a giant 8-storey high banner placed by New Balance on the city’s main shopping street, Calle Colón.
338 portable toilets.
1,000 kilos of bananas to be handed out
1,600 litres of Isaval paint to mark the route
1,750 volunteers who will support the event over the weekend.
2,764 beds and 1,428 rooms booked for this weekend through welcometovalencia.com in the 57 hotels participating in the VCR project.
3,800 metres of advertising canvas that will be recycled for social purposes.
4,852 m2 of blue carpet for the descent to the City of Arts and Sciences, the walkway and the post finish line area
5,147 euros will be donated to Médecins du Monde thanks to the charitable contributions from the runners.
5,300 runners who have trained with the Objective Valencia by Serrano plan through the +42KValencia smart app.
5,322 queries answered through the runner attention service in October alone
5,500 persimmons to be handed out
6,000 registrations updated (personal data, estimated time, bib name, etc.) between 3 and 14 November.
7,093 fencing units used along the route and in the starting and finishing area.
10,000 + trays of baby broccoli will be handed out
15,000 magazines published by RUNNING CV
16,000 FFP2 masks from Farmacia Ribera ready to be handed out
16,500 sachets of Vaseline will also be handed out
33,000 Enervit gels to be handed out
45,000 plastic cups will be used
70,200 bottles of Powerade to be handed out
204,960 bottles of Aquabona available
363,000 gifts will be delivered inside the runner’s and finisher’s bags