Košice Peace Marathon, live.

A marathon run every year since 1924

Medzinárodný maratón mieru, the International Peace Marathon in Košice, has been organised continuously since eight runners started on 28 October 1924.

The organiser’s history page calls it the continuously oldest marathon in Europe, adding that worldwide only Boston has a longer tradition. It was founded by Vojtech Braun Bukovský after he visited the 1924 Paris Olympics, and it kept going through wartime and through the pandemic years 2020 and 2021. The 2026 edition was run on Sunday 4 October.

Start and finish are on Hlavná ulica, the main street, between the DoubleTree by Hilton and the Dargov department store. The course is an urban loop based on the one used for the 1997 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships, fully asphalted and almost flat: it stays between 200.70 and 217.05 m above sea level, with 74 m of total ascent over the marathon. Marathoners run it twice, half marathoners once. The marathon starts at 09:00 together with a four-person relay, and the Volvo Half Marathon from 10:30. The marathon course carries World Athletics and AIMS certificates and has a six-hour limit.

Two laps are what make following it worth it: supporters on Hlavná ulica see their runner go through the start area at halfway and can plan the second lap around it. On Livebib the runner shares a link to their own broadcast, and family and friends open it in a browser, with no account and no app. They see the position on the course line, the distance covered and a finish estimate that updates as the race goes; anything estimated is marked as estimated, never as measured.