2020 Athens Authentic Marathon Cancelled

The 2020 ‘Athens Marathon. The Authentic’, scheduled to take place November 7-9, has been cancelled due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

The Hellenic Athletics Federation (SEGAS) announced the cancellation of Greece’s largest marathon on Thursday, underlining that every possible effort had been made in their cooperation with the Greek health authorities for the 38th Athens marathon to proceed as planned.

“Even by following a very strict manual of rules and regulations, staging only the Marathon Race and not the shorter races, reducing the number of participants and having all participants to go through a Covid-19 test before the Race, at the expenses of our Federation, was not enough,” SEGAS said.

The federation underlined that the aforementioned measures could not secure the absolute safety of each runners health, which is its top priority.

“Taking under consideration all the above, we are extremely sorry to announce today that the 2020 Athens Marathon will not be held,” SEGAS said.

Within the next days, the Athens Marathon Organizing Committee will contact each one of the registered runners via personalized email, informing him/her about the options they have, either deferring their registration into next year’s event (2021 Athens Marathon) or receiving full refund of the already paid entry fee.

Virtual race to take place

SEGAS said that it will launch a new, Special Edition Virtual Race, which will be a race for all and full of surprises, that will allow participants to test themselves either running alone on the route of their choice, or being joined by a small number of friends and/or family members.

Details on the Special Edition Virtual Race will be announced within the next days.

“We are very optimistic that after this pandemic is over we will all run together in our races in 2021, a very important year for Greece since it coincides with the anniversary of the 200 years after the Greek revolution,” SEGAS said.