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Roundup: Polish runner wins 2015 Reykjavik Marathon

Xinhua, August 23, 2015 Adjust font size:

Polish runner Bartosz Olszewski won the 32nd Reykjavik Marathon on Saturday in a field that drew more than 15,000 participants in the world's northernmost capital city of Iceland.

Bartosz Olszewski, 31, won the championship for male, crossing the finish line in a time of 02:29:30 for a full Marathon while Estonia runner Kaisa Kukk won the championship for female with a result of 02:53:09 in the race.

"It's great feeling, you know. Today, I'm in good form. So, I ran in the group to 30 km and then decided to dart. And it's my day, you know, great, great, great pace and I'm happy with this time," Olszewski told Xinhua.

Visiting Iceland for the first time on his vacation as a amateur runner, Olszewski said run is his hobby and this run is a great journey for him.

Enjoying her first experience to be the championship of marathon, Kaisa Kukk, 31, told Xinhua that she felt super to achieve her best results in her second marathon race.

"Feeling is super now. And this is my second marathon. My first was in Tallin last year, and the time is 2 hours and 59. So, here is my best time. The weather was super and all the people too, so I put power to do my best," she said.

The Iceland's annual event, set with six races in different distances for participants, including full marathon, half marathon, marathon relay, 10 km run, 3 km fun run and lazy town run, also attracted more than 3,000 runners from 70 countries and regions among all the participants.

Anna Lilja Sigurðardóttir, spokeswoman for Reykjavik Marathon, told Xinhua that they have designated the annual event to attract more people to Iceland.

"This race was first held in 1984. And there were guys from a travel agency thinking about how can they get more people, travelers come to Iceland. They just decided to start the marathon and 240 participated in the first race. And we have about 15,000 here today. So, it has grown a lot since start," she said.

Anna said that they are also encouraging more Icelandic people to take the last chance for running at the end of the summer time Iceland.

"Summer is short in Iceland, it's only about three months and someone would call it shorter. It's perfect to have it in August, in the end of summer, because people often train much more running during the summer than wintertime here in Iceland. So, it's actually a big celebration for the Icelandic runners. It's the last run," she said.

The race has raised 400 million Icelandic krona (about 2.97 million U.S. dollars) for charity since 2007 and a record of 85.634 million Icelandic krona (about 634,330 U.S. dollars) in 2014, according to the organizer. Enditem