BMW Berlin Marathon Welcomes You
September 30, 2012

History of the BERLIN MARATHON    

The story of the BERLIN-MARATHON is a story of the development of road running. 

When the first BERLIN-MARATHON was started on 13th October 1974 on a minor road next to the stadium of the organisers' club SC Charlottenburg Berlin 286 athletes had entered. 

The first winners were runners from Berlin: Günter Hallas (2:44:53), who still runs the BERLIN-MARATHON today, and Jutta von Haase (3:22:01).

It all began October 13th, 1974

It was until 1980 that the Berlin marathon route led the runners along the Grunewald, a forest in West Berlin. The maximum participation in those days was 397 in 1976.    But already during the early stages there was a world record.    In 1977 the national marathon championships were held at the event for the first time.    Women's winner Christa Vahlensieck set a new world best clocking 2:34:47.5 hrs at the berlin Marathon. It was also in 1977 when there was a reasonable good men's winning time: British runner Norman Wilson won in 2:16:20.7 hrs.

27th September 1981 was a big day for the organizers of the SC Charlottenburg. For the first time the BERLIN MARATHON was run through the city streets of West Berlin.   The race was started in front of the Reichstag and finished on Kurfürstendamm.   But it had been hard to persuade the local government and the police to move the race into the city. 

Ian Ray (Great Britain/2:15:41.8 hrs) was the first winner.   Angelika Stephan from Kassel (Germany) won the women's race in 2:47:23.5 hrs. 3,486 runners from 30 nations participated in the race – the largest field ever in a marathon in Germany. The quality of the BERLIN MARATHON kept improving from one year to the next. And number of participants strongly increased from 1981 onwards. 

In 1985 more than 10,000 entries (11,814)  were registered for the first time.

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