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Over 15,000 to run in marathon through all Moscow

The prize fund of the marathon was kept at the level of the previous year at one million and 690,000 roubles

MOSCOW, September 21. /ITAR-TASS/. Over 15,000 will run in a second Moscow marathon along the streets and boulevards of the Russian capital on Sunday.

On the same day runners will compete in another 10-kilometre race. The start and the finish of both races will traditionally take place at Olympic sport complex Luzhniki.

Not all participants will run the full marathon distance stretching for 42 kilometres and 195 metres, general director of sport and entertainment events in the Moscow City Alexander Polinsky said. Meanwhile, around 7,000 were running in the first Moscow marathon in the previous year.

The limited number of 6,000 runners was set for a 42-kilometre marathon race, director of the Moscow marathon Dmitry Tarasov noted. “Now almost all vacant places for marathoners are booked. As for foreign runners, they are mainly athletes from France and the United States. Eighty percent of Russian runners are Muscovites,” Tarasov added.

Svetlana Masterkova, Olympic champion in 800m and 1,500m events at the 1996 Summer Olympics in the U.S. city of Atlanta, will run in Moscow. “My dream is to run in the marathon titled “Bright Race” for five kilometres. I will make this dream come true this year. The 42-kilometre marathon race was always too long for me,” Masterkova said.

The prize fund of the marathon was kept at the level of the previous year at one million and 690,000 roubles. Winners of the marathon race will be presented with precious prizes - expensive watches with brilliants.

The marathon will run at 42 kilometres and 195 metres along the main embankments, streets and boulevards of the capital, Stalin-era skyscrapers and business centre Moscow City, the Garden Ring Road and Tsvetnoy Boulevard, on the Krymsky Bridge across the Moskva River and Kitay Gorod By-Street, on the dividing strip of Tverskaya Street and along the Kremlin Walls in central Moscow.

In 2013, the first year when the Moscow marathon was held, the event had brought together a record number of 2,366 runners for the marathon race in modern Russia.

The traffic will be restricted in central Moscow in the first half of Sunday over the marathon.