April 17 is another significant date in the history of Moldova. That day was the day of the second in the history of independent Moldova International Chisinau Marathon.
On the central square of Chisinau, more than 15 000 people from 50 countries gathered and ran the distances of42 km, 21 km, 10 km and 3 km along the central streets of the wonderful city. The scope of the second marathon is so great that the organizers did not expect such a huge influx of people to participate in the marathon.
The online registration was stopped at around 17:00 on Saturday, as the limit of the participants at the distances of 42, 21 and 10 km was significantly exceeded. All runners received their starter packs, put in the social network traditional photos of the running gear and set their alarm clocks to morning.
By 6:00 AM, the opening of Sport Expo took place, which has presented the largest range of goods and services, related to sports. This is sports equipment and clothing, sport and healthy nutrition, sports medicine, wellness, fitness, leisure and tourism, sports clubs for children, etc. At 07:00 AM, the registration for the 3 km race Iute Credit Fun Run has opened, and began the starter packs distribution was on.
Runners quickly began to catch up to the starting area, where all the participants were divided by the BIB-numbers and personal time. Participants of the 3 km race have been aligned in the next row, intended for the popular race.
The opening word before the race was held by the resident of the NGO Sporter and the main organizer of Chisinau marathon Dmitri Voloshin. He said that –“Today you, the participants of the marathon, are the most important people in this country”, and congratulated the 24 participants, celebrating their birthday that day.
So, at 09:15 the start was given to the second International Chisinau marathon. The column of runners stretched for several hundred meters, and lasted for 15 minutes, until all participants left the start zone.
Not much time after the start the first finishers of the race Iute Credit Fun Run were already seen on the horizon. A few minutes later the runners crossed the finish line of the 10 km a distance, the winner of which was Lobovsky Mikhail (athlete from Ukraine). Silver medal winner of the 10-kilometer race became Raileanu Maxim, and the bronze was won by Biznyuk Mihai.
Among women, the first in this race became Solzhenko Olesya. Second place went to Petrynzhel Anna, and the third was taken by Neno Anna.
While the champions of the 10 km race ere being awarded, the first winner of the half-marathon distance approached to the finish line. The title partner of this race was Puma Moldova. The first place for the 21 km distance was won by Gorbushka Nicholay. Zimbalist Gennady took the second place, and the third place went to Dumitru Nicholay.
Among women, the champion became Clipca Natalia, second place went to Zbarnea Natalia, and the third place was taken by Sofia Olsson.
Before the marathon champions were awarded, incendiary songs were sang on stage by the stars of the Moldovan pop.
Now the time came to reward the runners, who ran 42 km 195 m through the streets of Chisinau. The title of the champion of the second Chisinau marathon was again taken by Vitaly Gheorghita (Moldova). The second place was won by Marcin Holanda (Poland), and the third came Liviu Croitoru (Moldova). The prize for the 4th place went to Tsimbalario Igor (Moldova), the 5th place was taken by Clanton Straylir (USA), and 6th place went to Anfinov Maxim (Russia).
Women have fought to the last, and the winner of the marathon was Anfinova Nadezhda (Russia), the second place was taken by Averianova Anastasia (Russia), third by Lungu Anastasia (Moldova). The 4th ranked Kirillova Alexandra (Ukraine), 5th place – Matkowski Irina (Moldova) and 6th place – Edit Kiss (Hungary).
The general partner of the marathon Petrom Moldova awarded cash prizes to absolute champions of Chisinau marathon at the distance of 42 km for men and women.
All winners at distances of 42, 21 and 10 km were awarded with medals, cups, diplomas and gifts from partners and sponsors of the Chisinau marathon.
During the entertainment part of the program, Sporter.md and Garmin Moldova held the drawing doe two pairs of runner’s watches for men and women. Contestants had to publish their selfie in Facebook with the hashtag #GarminMarathonMD, and the winners of the competition were randomly defined using the site random.org – Natalia Ciobanu and Evgheniy Vyacheslavovichi, who received sports watch by Garmin.
If you look at the Chisinau marathon as a whole, quite significant and record numbers can be deduced:
– More than 15 000 people took part in the marathon
– Guests from 50 countries
– About 400 volunteers were involved in the entire marathon route
– The accuracy of the results was monitored by a team of arbitrators of 15 people from the Athletics Federation
– About 30 fan zones were located throughout the marathon route, where dozens of people supported the runners
– 24 birthday persons on this day
In addition to these numbers, many people and organizations have assisted in carrying out the most important event in 2016. It was cool!
All marathon results will be published on Monday,
April, 18th.
All photos are here
