Six historic road races awarded Heritage Plaque

The World Athletics Heritage Plaque is a location-based recognition, awarded for “an outstanding contribution to the worldwide history and development of the sport of track and field athletics and of out-of-stadia athletics disciplines such as cross country, mountain, road, trail and ultra-running, and race walking”.

These six historic road races join a list of 54 other recipients which had previously been awarded the plaque since the honour was inaugurated on 2 December 2018.

• Around the Bay Road Race, Hamilton, Ontario (CAN) – founded 1894.

• YMCA Turkey Trot, Buffalo, New York (USA) – founded 1896.

• Bechovice 10km, Prague (CZE) – founded 1897.

• Giro Podistico di Castelbuono, Sicily (ITA) – founded 1912.

• Košice Peace Marathon, (SVK) – founded 1924.

• Fukuoka International Open Marathon Championship, Fukuoka (JPN) – founded 1947

“These six footraces represent some of the oldest sports events, let alone running races, in the world,” said World Athletics President Sebastian Coe. “They join others such as the marathons in Athens, Boston and Seoul, the Saint Silvester São Paulo, and Hakone Ekiden which we recognised last year.”

The Košice Peace Marathon, founded in 1924, is Europe’s oldest marathon and, along with the Fukuoka International Open Marathon Championship, which was first celebrated in 1947, are among the original classic marathons established before the development of the mass running movement.