Will the start of the Marathon and Half of Buenos Aires depart from Palermo? Of course

We consulted our Buenos Aires birds and the information was confirmed.

On Wednesday night, an event took place in São Paulo to encourage sports tourism by Brazilians in Argentina and people connected to tourism, such as agencies and operators, were invited. Among the guests were Mayco, from Canal Corredores and Marcão, from Mania de Corrida.

One of the deputy directors of the Ñandu Foundation, the entity that organizes the Buenos Aires Marathon and Half, took the microphone and spoke about the race numbers, the number of Brazilians who participate every year and gave some information about this year’s competition (information that came to me later in the video I made yesterday on this subject).

Among them, according to Mayco, who made a series of stories on Instagram directly at the event (can be seen in the second edition of Thursday’s Café & Corrida – excerpt below), two changes will take place. The first is that both the half and marathon routes will no longer pass through the Autopista, a stretch of almost 5 km on a slight slope, which even has a toll.

The second thing he said is that the start and finish of the race would leave from the Palermo district and that people would need to pay attention to the organization’s website, be informed, pay attention to hotel reservations or AirBnB, etc. It was in the Whatsapp community of Corrida no Ar that I received the question if I knew about the change in Buenos Aires and so I went to find out what had happened.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a lot of connection with Argentina and I have friends who are journalists who specialize in running. So I activated my Argentine birds to verify the information given at the event in São Paulo, since this new information was not on the official website.

According to my sources, yes, it is true that the Autopista will leave the course of the two races, 21 km and 42 km. The first impact of this will be that whoever runs the race won’t go another 5 km without hydration, since they didn’t put posts on the track due to logistical difficulties. And the second impact is that the race will be faster and flatter, getting even better for good results, something that was already one of the biggest characteristics of the half and marathon.

Now about the start and finish from Palermo, I was told that there’s not the slightest chance of that happening. If there is any change it will only happen because the route will have to be re-measured and it may be that the gantry goes a few meters forward or backwards from where it has been placed in recent years.

Besides, it doesn’t make any sense to leave the woods of Palermo. The venue must be practically the only one there where the enormous number of male and female runners can be gathered at the start, finish, dispersal and post-race and it is the place that has seen the race grow sustainably year after year. I remind you that both the Marathon and the Half Marathon in Buenos Aires are the biggest races in their distances in South America. Only the sock, for example, usually brings together almost 20 thousand runners annually.

So if you made any hotel or AirBnb reservations in the Belgrano region, very close to the race, rest assured. The start and finish should not leave the region this year or the next.