The Istanbul Half Marathon (Turkish: İstanbul Yarı Maratonu) is an annual road running event over the half marathon distance (21.1 km) that takes place on the streets of Istanbul, Turkey in April. The event is sponsored by Vodafone. It was promoted to the IAAF Gold Label status for 2017.[1]
History
The event was established in 1987 under the name "Haliç Yarı Maratonu" ("Golden Horn Half Marathon"), and continued to run until 1993. After a break of 17 years, it revived in 2010 under the name "8th International Golden Horn Half Marathon" with participation of around 1,500 athletes from 22 nations.[2]
The organization of the half marathon took afour-year break until 2015 when the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality re-established the road running event under the name "Istanbul Half Marathon", and Vodafon took over the sponsorship. The start-finish line of the event was relocated to Balat on the coast of Golden Horn.[2]
The first edition immediately attracted high caliber elite runners, resulting in quick winning times of 1:00:13 minutes in the men's category and 1:06:38 minutes in the women's race.[3] A total of 2,095 runners finished the inaugural mass race in Istanbul.[4]
The event was organized by Istanbul Sports Events – the organizer of the long-running Istanbul Marathon event. The half marathon course begins and ends in Eyüp in the central-western part of the city, following a route south to the seafront area of Eminönü. Among other sights, it passes the Golden Horn, Yenikapı square and Kadir Has University.[5] A 10K run is also hosted for amateur runners and this section had over 1500 finishers in 2016.[6]
