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The Venice Marathon 2024 - The Venicemarathon
Date of the Venice Marathon 2024
The 38th Venice Marathon 2024 will take place on 27 October 2024.The Venice Marathon, VeniceMarathon, is above all, in addition to the very fine sporting event it represents, an opportunity to see top athletes run in some of Venice's most prestigious and beautiful locations.
After crossing the Liberty Bridge linking Venice to Terra Ferma (almost 4 kilometres), and then crossing the Tronchetto, the marathon runners run along the Zattere (2 kilometres) and then experience their first bridges... and Venetian torments.
More often than not, it's the bridges of Venice that make the difference between the competitors at the finish.
There are 14 bridges to cross in the last three kilometres of the race alone!
Of course, the bridges crossed in Venice by the marathon runners are now equipped with footbridges to save them the ordeal of walking (footbridges that are particularly appreciated by mothers with their pushchairs and by tourists with their suitcases on wheels, and which will remain in place until Epiphany, thanks to the Marathon).
However, when you have to run a total of 42195 kilometres and the last three kilometres are dotted with bridges to climb up and down, the muscular aches and pains are immediately more cruelly felt, and not all competitors manage this final, all-Venetian difficulty so well.
This is where the real spectacle begins for thousands of Venetians and tourists, most of whom have come to Venice especially to watch the famous Marathon.
A finish like this is indeed unforgettable, seeing these athletes pass in front of the Piazzetta di San Marco, in front of the Doge's Palace and the whole suite of Palazzi that line the Riva degli Schiavoni and the basin of St. Mark right up to the finish, is quite frankly magnificent.
The walkways installed on the bridges for the occasion also have a certain “elasticity”, as you can see from our photos and videos of the Venice Marathon.
As a result, the marathon runners feel almost weightless between their strides as they descend the bridges.
On the other hand, nobody “floats” in the air on the way up and the slopes are pretty steep!
But the “bravos” of the public, particularly warm, are there to encourage all the participants in the Venice Marathon which, let's not forget, actually comprises several races: men's, women's, but also handisport.
The athletes in the latter category are just as deserving as the former, as their arms must also “swallow” at full speed the 42195 kilometres of this Marathon and believe us, for them the climb up the bridges is even harder than for the competitors in the general category.
The proximity between the athletes and the public makes this race even more beautiful, more present, more captivating.
The police and fire brigade are mainly only present at the bridges, to keep pedestrian traffic flowing, and they applaud just as much as the public.
The applause here is in all languages, from Italian to Russian, English, German, etc., which adds to the magic of sport: no more frontiers, just sport, the beauty of sport, the beauty of effort and the union of all languages, nations and religions behind the athletes.
You can imagine, despite the effort and terrible suffering of a marathon, how it must feel to arrive in this magical place that is Venice, to tread its soil in these prestigious places with a view to your left of its Palaces, and to your right, the Basin of St. Mark with the church and the Campanile of Saint George Major as “background”.
Thank you to all the marathon runners!
The Venice Marathon starts on Terra Ferma at Villa Pisani in Strà, about 25 kilometres west of Venice, at the very beginning of the Brenta river. A place famous for all the Palazzi built there by Venetian patricians in the 17th and especially 18th centuries.
The marathon runners then pass through the towns of Dolo, Mira and Oriago, then the Marghera area, the oil port just before Venice, and Mestre, before making a three-kilometre detour through the San Giuliano park, still on Terra Ferma.
At this point, Venice, the beautiful and historic city of the Doges, begins to appear to them as the race takes in the Ponte della Liberta, almost four kilometres long.
But the bridge is still “nice” for marathon runners, because... it's flat!
From here, they cross the Tronchetto port area to arrive at the start of the Zattere, the large (two-kilometre) quay that runs alongside the Giudecca canal and borders the southern part of the Dorsoduro Sestier.
This is where “the skimming” of the Venice Marathon begins, with the first bridges to cross and strides that make all the difference between marathon runners.
At the end of the Zattere, competitors turn around the point of the Douane de Mer to take the 170-metre metal footbridge installed for the occasion across the Grand Canal.
A bridge that links the Dorsoduro to the Giardini Reale, the gardens along the St. Mark's Basin, just behind the Biblioteca Marciana and the Piazzetta San Marco with its two granite columns.
Seven more bridges await the marathoners before the finish line, and not the least of them long and curved... among the most imposing in Venice, such as the Pieta bridge, which is particularly difficult to cross for competitors who are often already on the verge of exhaustion.
And yet many of them seemed to be over the moon, managing to smile between two aches and pains, happy like us to be there, to be part of this sumptuous setting, to have done the Venice Marathon!
The Official Venice Marathon website | Venice Marathon Wikipédia
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