The Paris Marathon

About 35000 participants ran in the 29th Paris Marathon last Sunday (4/10/05). Next to the London Marathon and the Berlin Marathon, it is considered the best long-distance annual running event in Europe (per Wikipedia).

If you like a lot of things to see in a marathon, this marathon is for you. The marathon route takes in most of the world-famous Paris landmarks, including the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Elysees, the Bastille, Notre Dame Cathedral and the Eiffel Tower.

In 2004 there was an estimated 150K spectators. Sponsors gave away 50K samples/gifts to the spectators. That's an interesting way to get more spectators for the race.

From the finishing times you can tell this is a world class marathon. The men's winner (Salim Kipsang of Kenya) had a time of 2:08:04 and the women's winner (Lidiya Grigoryeva of Russia) had a time was 2:27:03. (Full race summaries: IAAF site, Paris Marathon site).

Here's a summary of the top 100 men and women times based on results at the Paris Marathon site:

Average time for top 100 male runners = 2:25:39

Number of Men who finished:

under 2:10 :   3
under 2:15 :  17
under 2:20 :  26
under 2:30 :  61


Average time for top 100 female runners = 3:06:44

Number of Women who finished:

under 2:30 :   6
under 2:45 :  12
under 3:00 :  23
under 3:15 :  62

Here are some more interesting stats on last year's race from the Paris Marathon site. Looks like running may not be as popular among women in Europe. They made up only 15% of the participants. As a comparison, the Los Angeles marathon had about 38% women.

35000 competitors

Women:  5122 (15%)
Men:   29878

French runners:     26756 (76%)
Non-French runners:  8244

Top 5 Countries Outside France:

United Kingdom   2100 (25%)
Germany          1363 (17%)
USA               964 (12%)
Italy             659 ( 8%)
Belgium           455 ( 6%)