Paris 2024: “marathon for all”, what does a race in the evening change?

2023-04-20 13:46:13

The news was officially announced on Thursday: the “marathon for all” of the Paris Olympic Games will start at 9 p.m. from the forecourt of the Hôtel de ville (IVe) at dusk. The organizers wanted to innovate on the occasion of this unprecedented event open to 20,024 runners. They hit the bullseye. For the general public, an evening departure on August 10, 2024 will limit the risk of dehydration and discomfort. Last summer, in the middle of a heat wave, temperatures sometimes exceeded 40°C during the day in the capital.

“We do not improvise night runner especially on marathon, underlines however Doctor Linh Vu Ngoc, head of the medical and paramedical pole at Creps de Châtenay-Malabry (Hauts-de-Seine). Running in the evening means changing your daily rhythm, and putting on running shoes after your day’s work is very different for ordinary athletes. The body is tired, the mind too, and vigilance will be increased in the evening. Everything is different at night, the noises, the space that surrounds you…” Quadruple French marathon champion Dominique Chauvelier remarks that “the stride is not the same”.

On August 10, 2024, Nicolas will attempt to complete his first marathon during the event for all at the Paris Olympic Games. DR

“I’m used to playing with sleep”

A middle-distance specialist, Nicolas, 45, will try to complete his first marathon after winning his bib by challenging the world record holder, the Kenyan Kipchoge, in Paris at the end of October 2022. This TER driver near Le Mans (Sarthe) is experienced in shift work. “I’m used to playing with sleep,” laughs the person concerned, who has already run an Ekiden (relay marathon) at night and 24 hours, alternating sessions between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. in the morning. Pacemaker in the Paris half-marathon (record in 1h14′26′’), Nicolas is already yearning to be at the start.

“Participating in the Games is a dream,” he enthuses. The enthusiasm will be there but there is a small feeling of bitterness not to run at the same time as the pros, well just behind… (smile). Afterwards, for health reasons, I understand that the organizers avoid the extreme heat of August, especially since many of the entrants will be running a marathon for the first time. »

“It seriously calls into question my participation”

Gabriel already has five marathons on his list, with a record at 3h35 achieved in Paris at the beginning of April. Qualified after repechage, this 36-year-old Parisian is disillusioned with the idea of ​​running at night. “By finishing at 1 a.m., we suspect that everything will be half empty, that there will be almost no one along the 42 km,” he fears.

In France, the only marathon contested on this night format was run in Bordeaux (Gironde) between 2015 and 2019. But for lack of volunteers and especially of means, it finally disappeared from the calendar. It took the magic of the Games to take up the torch.