According to Jorge Teixeira, from Runporto, the competition's organisers: “More than half of the participants are foreign. In recent months, we have been working to promote the event internationally in many countries at running fairs and exhibitions, and here is the result: for the first time in history, registrations for the Half Marathon are sold out at the beginning of June,” said the official.

In addition to the main distance of 21.195 kilometres, with the start and finish on Avenida de D. Carlos I, near the mouth of the Douro River, the event will once again feature a five-kilometre mini-marathon, aimed at participants of any age or level of fitness.


“It is impossible to have more people due to the way the route is designed. There are limitations and we cannot go through Vila Nova de Gaia at this time, due to the construction work on the D. Antónia Ferreira Bridge. When this is possible again, we can have as many entries as we want and accept 20,000 or 30,000 people”, analyzed Jorge Teixeira.

Last year, the Porto Half Marathon sold out the entries for the longer distance only in August and had 81 nationalities present, with 40% of foreign athletes.

“This year's edition will not be far from the number of countries we had in 2024. We are still working on the elite that will be hired and we will try to break records,” he said, given the marks set in each gender by Eritrean Zersenay Tadese, of 59.30 minutes, in 2011, and by Ethiopian Enatnesh Alamrew Tirusew, of 1:07.13 hours, in 2023.