On the last weekend of summer, on August 26, the pearl of the Black Sea coast, the city of Odesa hosted one of the biggest running events of the Black Sea shore – the 3rd Odesa Half Marathon 2018. For the first time in its history the half marathon course in Odesa gathered over one thousand participants, 1,125 to be exact! In general, over 2 thousand residents and visitors of Odesa took part in the event, and over 4 thousand people came to cheer them on. The victory on the half marathon course was celebrated by a representative of Volyn, Serhii Okseniuk, his winning time was 1:12:09. Among women, the first place and the new track record belongs to an athlete from Bukovyna Yuliia Profis, her time was 1:20:34, which is faster by 8 seconds compared to the last year record set by a resident of Odesa Valentyna Poltavska. It is worth mentioning that this is the second victory for Yuliia in the Run Ukraine races, since in the beginning of summer she got a victory in the 3rd Molokiya Lviv Half Marathon.
From the very start, the main competition between men was between Oleksandr Babaryka and Serhii Okseniuk. For almost 20 kilometers the athletes were running next to each other and only in the last kilometer Serhii accelerated and won the race. As a result, Oleksandr took the second place with the result of 1:12:36, and the third place belongs to Anatolii Bondarenko – 1:16:54.
“I had a feeling I would win. My pace was relatively slow, compared to by personal best time of one hour and four minutes. The weather was nice, it was pretty comfortable to run at eight in the morning. Of course, the track is a bit unlevelled, but everything was fine, everything was organized on the highest level.
It was only the third race after the runs in the mountains, so I am just getting into shape, but I had always wanted to run in Odesa by the sea”, – said the winner.
If the men were able to determine the winner only on the last kilometers, the women turned out to be running faster and it resulted in the new track record. Spending the most of the race behind her rival, Yuliia Profis got ahead of everyone else on the last hill, thus repeating her winning tactics that succeeded in Lviv. Oksana Okseniuk finished second with the result of 1:20:46, and the third winner was Khrystyna Bohomiahkova with the time of 1:21:37.
The winner shared about the detail of the competition on the route and her emotions after the victory:
“I came to Odesa to win. From the start I was running in a company, I was behind Oksana, but picked it up before the last hill and managed to get ahead.
It wasn’t easy to run, I got a cold before the race, so I had to run with enlarged lymph nodes, I could feel it. However, the conditions on the route were nice, the weather was also comfortable. I am satisfied, it is always nice to win!”
3rd Odesa Half Marathon 2018 became a loud major note of the running summer of 2018, and it is passing the baton of the Run Ukraine Running League 2018 to Kyiv, our capital city, which will host INTERSPORT RUN UA on September 9.
