The Siberian Running Festival is a sports holiday with a long history, the biggest cultural mass event in the capital of the Siberian Federal District, Novosibirsk.
The festival, started in 1998 as a series of city athletic races, today has become the Sports Day of the city, a global sports celebration. In September 2008 more than 17,000 sportspeople and amateurs stepped on the racetracks and about 150,000 spectators and supporters visited the central square of the city, Lenin Square.
The core of the Siberian Running Festival is the Novosibirsk Half Marathon, which already acquired the status of international event: in 2002 it became a full member of AIMS (Association of International Marathons and Distance Races) and was included in the official race calendar of this organisation. Over the last years the geography of the participants has expanded: our festival was visited by sportspeople from Germany, Kenya, the USA, Japan, India, Morocco and Nigeria. Moreover, the Half Marathon Absolute Record (1 hour 2 minutes 40 seconds) belongs to a Kenyan athlete, Sammy Tum Kipkoech.
In Russia, the Novosibirsk Half Marathon has reputation of one of the most significant athletic events (alongside with the marathons of Moscow, Omsk and Saint-Petersburg). Every year Novosibirsk gathers the sports elite of the country, the stars of the world and Russian marathons. The Novosibirsk Half Marathon has been held as Championship of Russia five times (!), which is unprecedented for the sports competitions of this type. The Russian Olympic Committee has twice awarded our event the title of “Best Russian Out of Stadium Competition”.
The event enjoys big popularity among the citizens and unconditional support of the Novosibirsk authorities. The Festival became a record-holder in the book “Records and Achievements of Novosibirsk”, twice it won the Siberian Fair Big Golden Medal “For Popularising Healthy Life-Style, Organising and Holding Mass Sports Events”. From the very beginning of the Festival, the Administration of the Novosibirsk Region and the Town Hall of Novosibirsk have been the co-organisers of the event.
The organisers of the Siberian Running Festival have always tried to introduce new aspects into such classical sport as marathon race, realise innovative ideas and go with the times, popularising healthy life-style.
Every year Lenin Square hosts many grounds which gather people professing extreme sports and unusual types of outdoor activities: cyclists, street-dancers, rollers, freestylers, masters of martial arts, arm wrestlers, paintballers and even the admirers of sports sauna.
In the annual process of the Festival preparation, the “The Team of the First” project is realised: during one month experienced coaches train the newcomers for conquering one of the most difficult racetracks of the competition – the Novosibirsk Half Marathon track. The daring experiment, started in 2005, went on to become a nominee for various prizes and stepped far over the borders of Novosibirsk. To record the results of the competition, the judges use the electronic time-measuring system “Champion Chip”. This system is used by the judges of the major world marathons in New York, London and Berlin. In 2009, the racetracks will be equipped with web-cameras, which will provide live webcast of the race and its results.
Organisers: (383) 204-77-68