Everything you need to know about this weekend’s big event in the capital of the Czech Republic including live stream info
Prague has been a popular pitstop for stag and hen parties over the years. This weekend, though, the city is set to be dominated by runners instead.
Forget the booze and the bars, the only thing that matters this weekend for many are isotonic drinks and half-marathon medals as thousands of people flood into the capital of the Czech Republic for one of Europe’s fastest-growing road races.
The Prague Half Marathon starts on Saturday (April 6) at 10am local time and features 15,500 runners. Thanks to the creation of a new start and finish area, this has risen impressively from 11,600 last year and the organisers, RunCzech, had to close the entries a couple of months ago due to the overwhelming demand.
Interestingly, almost 60% of the field is from outside the Czech Republic. Almost 1000 Brits have made the trip, for example, which means they make up 8% of the field. Only Germany and of course the Czech Republic will have a mightier presence.
This is the 24th edition of the race and adidas has remained a faithful partner since the beginning. “We both believed in each other from the start,” said Krzysztof Łuczakowski of adidas at the pre-event press conference. “Even during the Covid pandemic, Carlo (Capaldo, the president of RunCzech) always found a way.”
READ MORE: Sabastian Sawe leads elite entries
Libor Varhaník, president of the Czech athletics federation, agreed: “After hard Covid times the runners have returned. It’s a great message for Czech athletics federation.”
The elite line-ups are led by Sabastian Sawe, the reigning world half-marathon champion from Kenya. He has won five of the seven half-marathons he’s run in the past and his slowest time is 59:23. This means the event record of 58:47 is definitely under threat under what are expected to be sunny spring-like conditions on Saturday.
The race, which has a prestigious Elite World Athletics label, also includes Martin Fiz, the evergreen Spanish marathon runner who won a world title in 1995 but is still running amazingly well aged 61 and aiming to win all of the Superhalfs events to add to the World Marathon Majors sweep of victories he enjoyed when he was in his 50s.
READ MORE: Interview with evergreen runner Martín Fiz
Who knows, if their half-marathon goes well then maybe a few runners might join the party-goers in the city centre for a post-race drink too.
The event is on Czech TV. Or watch the live stream to the event here…
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