About Marathon Israel
Marathon Israel was born out of a love of running and a passion to create an international racing scene in Israel, blended with our country’s unique nature.
It all began in 2008 when a friend returned from the New York Marathon and got Ofer Padan – CEO of the Israel Marathon – all excited. Ofer, who had just turned 50 and had fallen into the “50-year-old crisis” needed that push to do something he really loved.
Ofer turned his enthusiasm into reality, and worked with the Tel Aviv Municipality to establish the first Tel Aviv Marathon, on the occasion of Tel Aviv-Jaffa’s centenary.
The rest is history.
In just a decade, Marathon Israel has become a leading company, a producer of diverse, unique, colorful, and very Israeli running events.
You know them all: the Jerusalem Marathon that we co-founded and marketed at its beginning, the Eilat Desert Marathon – a breathtaking off-road marathon that has no competitors in Israel and the entire area, the Tiberias Marathon – the oldest marathon race in Israel, which is annually renewed to offer more excitement, and other well known events: the Bible Marathon, the Winery Race, the Crane Race, the Volcano Race, the Hermon Race, Arad Masada Sunrise race, the Sderot Race, the Holon “ELEM” Race, the Jerusalem Walls night run, the Rishon Lezion Music Run, and many more you’ve heard about and will soon hear about.
With its development over the years, Marathon Israel became an official member of AIMS – the Association of International Marathons and Distance Races. In 2016, an AIMS delegation was hosted by Marathon Israel and visited all the sites where marathons are held in Israel.
The opening up to international runners gave rise to a new opportunity, and Marathon Israel also leads in the field of encouraging incoming tourism, working with the Ministry of Tourism, local authorities and international running groups and organizations.
Over the course of a decade we have gained considerable experience, but the largest asset of Marathon Israel is the local running community. A community of over 100,000 runners, who are connected to our running events as we are to committed to them. As the entire field of running developed, Marathon Israel added another layer to its events by including family and kid-runs which involve not only the runners but whole families in multi-sport events.
We are also proud to be a leader in connecting our events with runners and people with special needs – people recovering from cancer, the Youth Diabetes Association, the Kesher Ayin group for the blind, special education schools and more – all of which we embrace and connect to our running events, and make special routes available for them.
After a decade of activity, Marathon Israel is now focused on building concept events that provide participants with a total experience, providing a stage for great professionals as well as a platform for runners – a blog system that every runner can enjoy and express his or her own personal running experience.
On the occasion of our 10th anniversary, we stand behind our motto – “A Whole World of Running”, and true to that motto we promise to run with you into the next decade with exclusive, special, innovative, up-to-date events, that never cease to surprise and fill you with energy.
Our Partners
Partners
