Salvador Illa runs the Barcelona Marathon and achieves his goal: less than 4 hours
The president is a regular at these events and has already participated in the Catalan capital's Half Marathon.
BarcelonaThe President of the Generalitat (Catalan government), Salvador Illa, ran the Barcelona Marathon this Sunday, one of the 27,000 runners who completed the high-level event. He did so with a personal goal that he more than met, as he explained to X. "This year the goal was to complete it in less than 4 hours and we achieved it." He ended up clocking 3:41:07, almost twenty minutes less than his self-imposed time.
In fact, The race has seen a new male and female record: 26-year-old Tesfaye Deriba Ketema set a new record for this Marathon with a time of 2 hours, 4 minutes, and 13 seconds, while Sharom Chelino improved the women's record with a time of 2:19:33. In any case, the president, who already participated in the Catalan capital's Half Marathon, where he ran a time of 1 hour and 36 minutes, returned to the asphalt of Cap i Casal to test himself.
This year's edition of the Marató has not only broken records, but has also significantly improved the number of participants, with 7,000 more than last year. However, many of them have come from abroad on purpose: 60% to be precise. This 2025 is the first year that the Marató has included the participation of the President of the Generalitat.