Episode 62 - Makis Asimakopoulos, General Manager, Athens Marathon, The Authentic - a podcast by Mass Participation World

In these challenging times when there is limited good news of events going ahead today's episode of The Aid Station provides a ray of hope as we travel to Athens to meet Makis Asimakopoulos, General Manager, Athens Marathon, The Authentic.

On Friday it was announced that the event will go ahead in November with two races of 5,000 runners spaced one hour apart and when I spoke to Makis yesterday the race was already close to sold out. The Athens Half Marathon postponed from March to September will also go ahead.

"Greece has done extremely well at managing the pandemic with early lock-down and other measures".

Makis shares details of how the races will be managed - essentially broken down into multiple waves of 500 runners with hugely detailed social distancing plans at the start line with mini waves of eight runners sent off every few seconds. Well worth listing to the intricate details.

Its hard not to get swept up with his passion and enthusiasm for the event that he has been instrumental in managing the growth of the event. "In 2006 we had an event with 4,000 people and last year 14 years later we had an event with 60,000 people so the passion has paid of".

Watch my talk with Makis here https://youtu.be/ZtGRx_oWBvs

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