Record marathon!

The novelty of this year’s Marathon consists of a route different from previous years’. This year, Marathon runners will cross the entire downtown Poznan area. As usual, the Marathon will start in Baraniaka Street near Lake Malta. The runners then follow the streets in the vicinity of the Cathedral and Poznan Old Town. After circling the downtown area, they head south towards the recreational areas in Dębina, and then return to the surroundings of Lake Malta. Every runner will have to complete two circuits as described above, with a length of about 20 kilometres each.

Poznan hosted the Squash European Nations Challenge Cup 2009 (ENCC 2009). The competitions of the ENCC series are team championships for countries where squash is developing as a sports discipline. Poznan saw a struggle of 21 three-person teams, including 13 men’s and 8 women’s teams. Participants were national teams from Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Croatia, Russia, Ukraine, Malta, Cyprus, Isle of Man and Gibraltar, amongst others. The ENCC tournament is the biggest international squash event to have taken place in Poland.

The Polish team saw the first success at this international tournament in 2003 when the men’s team reached third place. For our next achievements we had to wait until 2006 and 2008 when the women’s team was awarded silver medals, and in 2007 when our women reached third place in the tournament.

During the FILA (International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles) Congress held in the Danish Herning before the start of the Wrestling World Championships, the City of Poznan was awarded the organisation of the Wrestling Qualifiers for the 1^st Summer Youth Olympic Games that are to take place in August 2010 in Singapore.

Poznan defeated such cities as Samokov (Bulgaria), Martigny (Switzerland), Szombathely (Hungary) and Baku (Azerbaijan). The Qualifiers will take place on the 22^nd and 23^rd of May 2010.

Remember that the Capital of the Wielkopolska Region applied for the organisation of the Summer Youth Olympic Games in 2010, and at present is once again aspiring to the organisation of the Games in 2014. This decision will be announced in February 2010.

EURO 2012 – Base Camps

The preparations for Euro 2012 are also visible outside the City of Poznan, where so-called base camps situated in the Wielkopolska Region, are preparing to perform their special function. Towns from across the whole region have aspired to the status of base camp, which will serve as the training bases for the teams participating in Euro 2012.

By the middle of next year there will be a list of 16 camps in the country that are most likely to accommodate the players during the Championship. It is important that their accommodation standards be high and enable the players to rest comfortably and prepare for their matches. Today, the top spots among the best prepared base camps are those in Opalenica, Palace in Wiejce and Prusim (all situated within a radius of 50-60 kilometres from Poznan). What’s more, Poznan wishes to propose other sites for the players in Jarocin and Baranów if the venue modernisation processes there go as planned.