World Athletics reveals marathon route for 2023 world championships
The six road races will take athletes right through the heart of Budapest, Hungary
Photo by:
Kevin Morris
Organizers of the 2023 World Athletics Championships have released the marathon and race walk routes that will be used this summer in Budapest, Hungary. Six different events (three for women, three for men) are set to be held on the roads of Budapest, with race walkers tackling 20K and 35K races and the world’s top marathoners battling it out for a world title over 42K. The World Athletics Championships will run from Aug. 19 to 27.
The routes
The week of world championship competitions begins on the morning of Aug. 19 with the men’s 20K race walk. A day later, the women will take to the streets of Budapest, also covering 20K. Later in the week, on Aug. 24, both the men’s and women’s 35K race walk event will be held. The final weekend of the world championships will see the women’s marathon on Aug. 26, followed by the men’s race the next day, which will mark the end of Budapest 2023.
The race walk routes will start and finish in Budapest’s Heroes’ Square, a beautiful part of the city, with the 20K racers competing on a 1K loop and the 35K event following a 2K circuit. The two marathons will be held on a much bigger 10K loop, which athletes will complete four times, and also start at Heroes’ Square, following a straight path toward the Danube River. This route will bisect the city’s downtown core, taking runners past some of Budapest’s most beautiful destinations, including UNESCO World Heritage sites, and crossing the Danube River via the Széchenyi Chain Bridge in both directions multiple times.
As the competition director of Budapest 2023 (and former Hungarian marathoner), Éva Petrik, said, she and her team “found a really good route for [the] marathoners,” adding that they considered 30 options before zeroing in on the loop they ultimately picked. “There were and are many possibilities in this city as to how to draw a route for a marathon. In the end, we chose this 10K course, which will be completed by the world’s best in four laps in August.”
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