The Stockholm Marathon, known as the ASICS Stockholm Marathon for sponsorship reasons, is an annual marathon arranged in Stockholm, Sweden since 1979. It serves as the Swedish marathon championship race. At the 2009 Stockholm Marathon more than 18,500 participants (14,442 men and 4385 women) were registered.
The marathon starts adjacent to the 1912 Olympic Stadium and consists of two loops around the city, finishing with a three-quarter lap around the tracks of the Olympic Stadium. Until and including the 2009 edition, the two loops around the city differed slightly from each other, but the major part of the loops were identical. However from 2010 the route is changed somewhat to make the loops more different from each other. Most notably, the first loop is now shorter, thus minimizing the risk that top runners run into the tail of the starting field.
The marathon normally takes place at the beginning of June or the end of May, They runs on a Saturday to 2010, they start at 02:00 pm, from 2011 they start 11:30 am. Thus distinguishing it from the majority of city marathons (London, New York, Paris) which take place on Sunday mornings, to minimise disruption to the city. This leads to a risk in some editions being held in considerable heat, and indeed has been, especially last years with temperatures around 30°C (85 °F).
The book The Ultimate Guide to International Marathons (1997), written by Dennis Craythorn and Rich Hanna, ranks the Stockholm Marathon as the best marathon in the world.
Famous quotes containing the words stockholm and/or marathon:
“He was begotten in the galley and born under a gun. Every hair was a rope yarn, every finger a fish-hook, every tooth a marline-spike, and his blood right good Stockholm tar.”
—Naval epitaph.
“The mountains look on Marathon—
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians’ grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)