Organizers of major sports events put Estonia on the global map
Translated from Estonian and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.
At a glance
- Mati Lilliallik drew criticism from Estonia's running community after announcing plans to stage a Tallinn marathon with 1,000 participants in 2010.
- Estonia's largest earlier mass race had been the Vändra marathon, which attracted about 400 runners during the Soviet era, partly because participants came from across the Soviet Union.
Mati Lilliallik was met with disbelief when he announced that he wanted to bring 1,000 runners to a Tallinn marathon in 2010.
“Have you gone mad?” people asked him rhetorically. The plan appeared wildly ambitious to Estonia's running community at the end of the 2000s.
Until then, the largest mass marathon in Estonia's history had been the Vändra marathon. During the Soviet era, it drew at most around 400 runners, largely because participants arrived from across the Soviet Union.
Have you gone mad?
Originally published by Postimees in Estonian. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.