Greeks dominate Athens Marathon as foreign runners stay away

ATHENS: Konstantinos Gkelaouzos won the 38th Authentic Athens Marathon race on Sunday in an event dominated by Greek runners as top foreign athletes snubbed the spectacle.

The 31-year-old runner timed 2hrs 16 min 49sec, the fasted time ever recorded by a Greek on the 42km course, breaking the old mark set in 2004 by Nikos Polias in the Athens Olympics in 2:17.56.

Second was Panagiotis Mpourikas in 2:22.33 and third was Charalampos Pistolis in 2:24.05, both from Greece.

The first woman across the finish line was Greece’s Gloria-Tziovan Privilegio who was 26th overall with a time of 2:41.30.

The marathon returned after a two-year absence due to the COVID-19 pandemic with 2,555 participants from dozens of countries but without any of the top runners.