Sports Forum and the 36th Belgrade Marathon

The Subotica Half Marathon as a guest of the Belgrade Marathon

On Saturday, 22 April, the organising team of the Subotica Half Marathon was a guest at the Sports Forum organised by the Belgrade Marathon, headed by director Darko Habuš, at the Mona Plaza hotel in Belgrade.

All organisers of road races in Serbia were invited to the Sports Forum; besides the Subotica Half Marathon, colleagues from Sombor, Novi Sad, Belgrade (the Winter Night Run, Plavi Krug, the Serbia Business Run Series), Čačak, Vršac and Zrenjanin were also there.

We attended an extensive and superbly planned forum. We enjoyed lectures on the hydration of marathon runners, sports management and ways of sponsoring major events, presented by some of Serbia’s top experts.

We also witnessed stories and experiences of marathon and ultramarathon runners at major events around the world. At the beginning we heard the opening words of director Darko Habuš, who informed all of us and our colleagues with a thorough, inspiring report on all the activities of the Belgrade Marathon over the past year and deeply motivated all of us to continue doing the very best we can for the running community.

We were informed in detail about the vision and approach to the new visual identity of the Belgrade Marathon, statistics from earlier years compared with today’s figures, the security challenges our colleagues from the Belgrade Marathon face, and novelties such as the running expo, the new 10-kilometre race and all the difficulties that come with them.

 

After the report, in pleasant conversation, we had the chance to board the transport our host had organised and, together with director Darko and fellow organisers, walk through sectors such as the START zone, the FINISH zone and the field hospital at the main post of the Belgrade Red Cross. We talked with all the coordinators of those zones, who informed us in detail about their concepts and ideas, as well as the activities and efforts to put them into practice. We were pleasantly surprised when Darko told us that this was the first time in the history of the Belgrade Marathon that most of the set-up was on the street a few days before the race, and that the City of Belgrade had accommodated them at some points so they could set up earlier and avoid having to set things up the night before the race.

As organisers of the Subotica Half Marathon, one of the largest in Serbia by number of participants after the Belgrade Marathon, we fully understood and understand such requests from our colleagues at the Belgrade Marathon, and we are glad that the City of Belgrade recognised their requests and reasons. All this is a great introduction to creating a truly high-quality event, which the Belgrade Marathon strives to become, not only in regional terms. And we sincerely wish that for our colleagues at the Belgrade Marathon.

We enjoyed the Sports Forum and the get-together in Belgrade, and it was an honour and a pleasure to be among the guests of the Belgrade Marathon, the biggest running event in our country.

On Sunday we were also in Belgrade, where we supported on the spot our friends and all the runners who flooded the streets in a record number of 10,500 at the start of the 36th Belgrade Marathon! Well done, everyone!

We also take this opportunity to invite all fellow organisers to Subotica on 27 August, as well as all of you, to get together and run through history!

 

Photo source: private archive and Belgrade Marathon