Mallorcan runner Antoni Roldan takes first place for the men whilst the Italian Daniella Gilardi wins the womens race in the eleventh edition of the TUI Marathon Palma de Mallorca which took place on Sunday 19th October.
Roldan completed the course in a time of 2 hours 30 minutes, followed by the Czech athlete Mulugeta Serbessa in 2 hours 31 minutes, while Toumi Dahmani from Moroccan took bronze. Dahmani has lived in Palma for many years now and can be seen regularly in road races and triathlons across the Island came in with a time of 2 hours 33 minutes.
According to official race data a total of 11,294 runners from 64 different nationalities took part in the marathon, a record figure for participation. In the women's half, Gilardi won with a time of 3 hours 10 minutes, beating the German Claudia Teichmann who came second with a time of 3 hours 18 minutes and Angelika Schlender-Kamp, also from Germany was third at 3 hours 19 minutes.
The half marathon was a closer race with times being split over only 28 seconds between the top three finishers - Guillem Moreno, Antoni Oliver and Simon Wagemaker.
In women, the British Jessie Sanzo repeated her triumph of 2013 winning first place with a time of 1 hour 19 minutes, nearly three minutes faster than last year. Sencelles Llabrés Sebastiana was second and the Hungarian Zsanett Kis, in third.
In addition to this nearly 2000 children took part in the Kids Race which was held on Saturday 18th. With various lengths of race and different age brackets the sheer number of children taking part shows how much the event has grown in popularity in the last 10 years.
We can now look forward to next year's event...it might be time to get the trainers out and hit the road!
