Berlin & Berlin Marathon

Plaque name: Berlin & Berlin Marathon.

Location: Rotes Rathaus, Rathausstraße 15, 10178 Berlin, Germany.

Plaque awarded: 01/11/2023.

Reason: Plaque Categories – City & Competition

The plaque honours more than 130 years of organised track & field athletics and running events in Berlin.

Notably, in 1913, Berlin staged the second Congress of the IAAF (World Athletics) and the city is one of only nine to have hosted the summer Olympic Games and the World Athletics Championships. On those two occasions Berlin’s Olympic Stadium provided the dramatic stage for the legendary triumphs of Jesse Owens and Usain Bolt.

“Berlin is especially a city of running with the first races introduced by members of the English FC in Berlin in the winter of 1891/92, and the Chaussee runs from Potsdam to Berlin over 25.6 km organized by Berlin track and field athletes since 1894, long-distance running found its home in Berlin", wrote Gerd Steins in the "Sporthistorische Blätter" of the Berlin Sports Museum.

Since then, numerous other road running initiatives have been born in Berlin including the Berlin Marathon, the Berlin Half Marathon, the 25 km of Berlin, the Avon Women's Run and the Team Relay.

At the epicentre of the city’s running history is the annual Berlin Marathon, founded in 1974 by running enthusiast Horst Milde. The race director for the first three decades, Horst established the Berlin Marathon’s international reputation for organisational excellence. With more than 40,000 finishers annually, the Berlin Marathon is one of the world’s largest mass road races. The city’s flat, fast course also attracts the world’s best elite runners. As of the date of the award of the plaque, a total of thirteen world records have been set in the Berlin Marathon.

Cross country running and track & field have a long tradition in the city. The first documented cross country race in Germany was held on 26 May 1900 on the Grünau-Eichwalde course organised by the Berlin Sports Club Marcomannia, whereas on 16 September 1900 the first German championship at 100 metres was held in the city.

The most famous of all German track and field meetings, ‘Internationales Stadionfest’ or ‘ISTAF’, was founded on 3 July 1921 by the Berliner Sport-Club (BSC), the Sport-Club Charlottenburg (SCC) and the Schwimmclub Poseidon.

ISTAF, which is the world’s oldest invitational one-day track and field meeting, was awarded a World Athletics Heritage Plaque in 2019, which was presented to the meet organisers at the start of the 80th edition on 12 September 2021 marking the centenary of the meeting’s foundation.