Spartathlon is a ultramarathon race held annually in Greece since 1983, between Athens and Sparta, the modern town on the site of ancient Sparta. The Spartathlon is based on the run of Pheidippides, an Athenian messenger who travelled from Athens to Sparta before the Battle of Marathon in a day and a half to seek aid against the Persians. Five Royal Air Force officers attempted the course in 1982 and the competition was started the next year.
Considered one of the most difficult ultramarathons because of its stringent cutoff times, hilly terrain, limited crew support opportunities and hot weather, the race has gained exceptional popularity, attracting runners from each continent. Entry spots are also highly coveted as organizers limit the field to 400, forcing most applicants into a lottery.
Spartathletes must run from Athens along the coast of the Megara Gulf, across the Isthmus of Corinth and over Mount Parthenion before descending into Sparta, passing through 75 check points.
Origin
The Spartathlon aims to trace the footsteps of Pheidippides, an Athenian messenger sent to Sparta in 490 BC to seek help against the Persians in the Battle of Marathon. Pheidippides, according to an account by Greek historian Herodotus, arrived in Sparta the day after he departed. Herodotus wrote: "On the occasion of which we speak when Pheidippides was sent by the Athenian generals, and, according to his own account, saw Pan on his journey, he reached Sparta on the very next day after quitting the city of Athens."
Based on this account, John Foden, an officer of the Royal Air Force and a long distance runner, went to Greece in 1982 with four officers to test whether it was possible to cover the nearly 250 kilometres (155 miles) in a day and a half (36 hours). The following year a team of enthusiastic supporters (British, Greek and other nationalities) based at the British Hellenic Chamber of Commerce in Athens and led by Philhellene Michael Callaghan organised the running of the first Open International Spartathlon Race. The event was run under the auspices of SEGAS, the Hellenic Amateur Athletics Association. Forty-four men and one woman from twelve countries were entered into the first Spartathlon in 1983.
Race
The Spartathlon is usually held around late September to roughly coincide with the date of the Battle of Marathon. Runners have 36 hours to run , roughly the equivalent of six consecutive marathons, between Athens and Sparti, the site of ancient Sparta. Runners have to deal with the Greek heat in the day, the cold of the night, and the mountainous terrain. There are 75 checkpoints along the way, where runners are disqualified for safety reasons if they fail to meet time cut-offs. Many runners have crews that support them during the race, such as helping them resupply at the checkpoints. Any non-finishers are picked up by a bus and taken to Sparta together.||||||24:08:13||||||25:05:48 ||Roy Pirrung || ||28:33:02
|-
|1993||||||25:57:12||Marcel Foucat ||||27:46:37||Milan Furin ||||28:51:37
|-
|1994|| James Zarei || || 26:15:00||Kenji Okiyama|||| 25:55:00 ||Peeter Kirppu ||||26:07:00
|-
|1995|| James Zarei || || 25:59:42||Vasilios Chalkias ||||27:49:46||Kazuyoshi Ikeda||||28:12:00
|-
|1996||||||26:21:00||||||27:55:00||Roy Pirrung||||27:56:32
|-
|1997|| Constantinos Reppos|| || 23:37:00||Kenji Okiyama||||25:55:00||||||28:11:00
|-
|1998|| Constantinos Reppos || || 25:11:41||Kenzi (Kenji) Okiyama||||26:13:13|| James Zarei||||26:44:04
|-
|1999||Jens Lukas||||25:38:03||||||27:08:57||Jun Onoki||||27:16:36
|-
|2000|| Masayuki Ohtaki (Otaki, Ōtaki) || || 24:01:10||Jens Lukas||||24:59:54||Cees Verhagen||||25:35:50
|-
|2001||Valmir Nunes||||23:18:05||Jens Lukas||||24:46:51||Ryōichi Sekiya||||25:27:30
|-
|2002||Ryōichi Sekiya||||23:47:54||||||25:16:56||Jeffry Oonk||||26:58:55
|-
|2003||||||23:28:24||Valmir Nunes||||25:30:35||Jean-Jacques Moros ||||26:26:16
|-
|2004||Jens Lukas||||25:49:59||||||26:20:02||Martin Juri||||27:19:15
|-
|2005||Jens Lukas||||24:20:39||Jean-Jacques Moros ||||25:03:30||||||26:34:42
|-
|2006||Scott Jurek||||22:52:18||Ryōichi Sekiya||||24:14:11||Masayuki Ohtaki (Otaki, Ōtaki) ||||25:19:12
|-
|2007||Scott Jurek||||23:12:14||||||24:29:41||Valmir Nunes||||25:37:40
|-
|2008||Scott Jurek||||22:20:01||||||24:52:09||Lars Skytte Christoffersen|||| 25:29:41
|-
|2009||Ryōichi Sekiya||||23:48:24||Lars Skytte Christoffersen ||||24:32:00||Jon Harald Berge|||| 25:10:00
|-
|2010||||||23:03:06||Jan Albert Lantink ||||23:31:00||Jan Prochaska||||24:56:00
|-
|2011||||||22:57:40||Yuji Sakai||||24:22:24||Michael Vanicek||||24:55:59
|-
|2012|| Stu Thoms || || 26:28:19||Tetsuo Kiso ||||26:36:23||||||27:14:25
|-
|2013|| João Oliveira || || 23:28:31 ||||||25:29:11||||||25:53:44
|-
|2014||||||22:27:57|||| || 23:56:19 || Andrzej Radzikowski ||||25:48:25
|-
|2015|||| || 23:16:44 ||Dan Lawson || || 23:53:05 || Hansen Kim ||||23:53:52
|-
|2016|| Andrzej Radzikowski || || 23:02:23 ||Marco Bonfiglio|| || 23:36:58 || ||||24:07:29
|-
|2017||Aleksandr Sorokin||||22:04:04|||| || 22:49:37 || Nikolaos Sideridis |||| 22:58:40
|-
|2018|| Yoshihiko Ishikawa || || 22:55:13 |||| || 23:37:25 || João Oliveira || || 24:34:30
|-
|2019
|Bódis Tamás
|
|23:29:24
|Csécsei Zoltán
|
|24:16:59
|
|
|24:26:20
|-
|2021
|
|
|21:57:36
|
|
|23:17:49
|Milan Sumny
|
|23:53:19
|-
|2022
|
|
|21:00:48
|Toru Somiya
|
|21:18:04
|Yoshihiko Ishikawa
|
|23:06:45
|-
|2023
|
|
|19:55:09 (Course Record)
|Simen Holvik
|
|22:17:23
|Fernando Andres Martinez Roman
|
|23:32:59
|-
|2024
|
|
|20:18:23
|Martínez Roman Fernando Andres
|
|23:28:46
|Robin Florian
|
|23:51:30
|--
|2025
|
|
|21:24:35
|Perini Francesco
|
|22:05:27
|Ishikawa Yoshihiko
|
|23:54:23
|}
Women
Time = hours:minutes:seconds
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:95%;"
!Year !!1st !!Nationality !!Time!!2nd!!Nationality!!Time!!3rd!!Nationality!!Time
|-
|1983 ||Eleanor Robinson (formerly Adams)||||32:37:52
!—||—||—||—||—||—
|-
|1984 ||Mary Hanudel (later )||||30:27:00|| Marcy Schwam<br>Lorna Richey (later Lorna Michael) || <br> || 34:15:10
!—||—||—
|-
|1985 ||Mary Hanudel (later )||||34:10
!—||—||—||—||—||—
|-
|1986 ||Mary Hanudel (later )||||31:46:45||Waltraud Reisert || || 33:21:00
!—||—||—
|-
|1987 || Hilary Walker || || 31:23:30|| Waltraud Reisert ||||35:31:56||-||-||-
|-
|1988
!colspan="9"|—
|-
|1989 ||Mary Hanudel (later )|| || 31:57:23||Monika Kuno||||34:10:00||Eiko Endo|||| 34:36:49
|-
|1990 || Anne-Marie Deguilhem || || 34:07:41|||||| 35:08:03|||||| 35:31:30
|-
|1991 || Ursula Blasberg || || 34:42:45
!—||—||—||—||—||—
|-
|1992 || Hilary Walker || || 31:23:30||||||33:47:00|| Miyako Yoshikoshi||||33:47:52
|-
|1993 || Sigrid Lomsky || || 32:46:17||||||33:47:12|| Miyako Yoshikoshi||||34:18:00
|-
|1994 ||Helga Backhaus|| || 30:39:00||Kazuko Kaihata||||34:12:17||Miyako Yoshikoshi||||34:33:21
|-
|1995||Helga Backhaus||||29:33:00||Miyako Yoshikoshi||||33:47:52||Kimie Funada (later Kimie Noto)||||34:53:34
|-
|1996||Helga Backhaus||||29:50:00||||||30:27:00||Kimie Funada (later Kimie Noto)||||34:12:00
|-
|1997 || Helga Backhaus|| || 30:39:00||Kimie Funada (later Kimie Noto)||||33:36:00||Heike Pawzik||||33:46:00
|-
|1998 |||| || 28:46.58||Kimie Funada (later Kimie Noto)||||29:32:21|| Helga Backhaus||||29:53:49
|-
|1999 || Anny Monot || || 35:38:08||Kimie Funada (later Kimie Noto)||||35:41:31
!—||—||—
|-
|2000 || Hiroko Okiyama || || 29:16:37||||||30:56:16||Helga Backhaus||||31:35:24
|-
|2001 || Alzira Portela-Lario || || 30:31:41||Kimie Funada (later Kimie Noto)||||33:49:17||Heike Pawzik||||34:41:10
|-
|2002 ||||||28:10:48||Hiroko Okiyama||||30:25:49||Mayumi Okabe||||31:33:35
|-
|2003 || Akiko Sakamoto || || 29:07:44||Sumie Inagaki||||29:38:54||Barbara Szlachetka ||||31:50:23
|-
|2004 ||Kimie Noto||||29:57:40|| Hiroko Okiyama||||31:01:17|| Anke Drescher|||| 32:55:26
|-
|2005 ||Kimie Noto||||30:23:07||Elke Streicher ||||32:19:59||Anke Drescher||||32:52:23
|-
|2006 ||Sumie Inagaki||||28:37:20||Takako Furuyama|||| 31:40:31 |||||| 31:41:56
|-
|2007 || Akiko Sakamoto|| || 31:09:24||||||31:56:03||Kimie Noto ||||32:11:05
|-
|2008 || Sook-Hue Hur || || 30:03:22||Stacey Bunton ||||31:25:59||Heinlein Marika ||||31:39:19
|-
|2009 || Sumie Inagaki || || 27:39:49|| Yoshiko Matsuda||||31:16:00||Lisa Bliss|||| 32:27:00
|-
|2010 || Emily Gelder || || 30:17:03||Heather Fouwdlink-Hawker||||32:43:00||Yoshiko Matsuda||||33:31:00
|-
|2011 |||| || 29:07:39||Ruth Podgornik Res ||||32:17:19||Mimi Anderson||||32:33:23
|-
|2012 || Elizabeth Hawker (also 3rd overall that year)