An unforgettable Cetilar Pisa Half Marathon
With the participation of nearly 1,400 athletes from ten nations, the eleventh edition of the Cetilar Pisa Half Marathon, the foot race that ended on Sunday 9th October under the “Leaning Tower” in the breathtaking setting of Piazza del Duomo, was an extraordinarily successful event.
Organized by the non-profit ”Per Donare la Vita” Association, which assists patients involved in complex therapies together with their families and promotes the culture of organ donation, together with the Gruppo Podistico ASD Leaning Tower Runners and the Gruppo Podistico Parco Alpi Apuane, the event ended with the victories of Kenyan athlete Paul Tiongik (Gruppo Podistico Parco Alpi Apuane), the first runner to cross the finish line, who clocked 1 hour, 3 minutes and 56 seconds, and the athlete from Rwanda Celine Iranzi ( GS Orecchiella Garfagnana), the first woman, who took 1 hour, 16 minutes and 17 seconds.
This year, the Cetilar Pisa Half Marathon, which we have supported with our Cetilar brand – the cream that reduces painful symptoms in the joints and skeletal muscles and is also useful in the case of sports injuries – has had an exceptional testimonial in the person of film director and actor Carlo Verdone, who publicized a message to raise public awareness about the social value of organ and tissue donation for transplant.
Emblematic here was the fact that the start of the competitive half-marathon proper was preceded by the start of a group of runners who alternated pushing the wheelchairs of other athletes with physical disabilities all along the route. Also notable was the fact that the race was opened by an athlete who suffers from a spinal cord injury and who managed to walk and take a few running steps, thanks to an exoskeleton created by the ”Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Pisana” as part of a research project co-ordinated by Dr. Giulia Stampacchia.
With respect to the sports side of the 21,097 kilometers of this Cetilar Pisa Half Marathon 2017 completed by 1,272 athletes, behind the Kenyan Tiongik, Jean Baptiste Simukeka (RWA) finsihed in second place, followed by Frederick Habakurama, third and best of the Italian runners. Meanwhile, in the women’s classification, Italian athlete Denise Cavallini crossed the finish line in second place, behind the winner Iranzi (who also scored an excellent 13th overall) and in front of the other Italian woman, Veronica Vannucci.
The athletes were rewarded during a very well attended ceremony in presence of endorser Carlo Verdone, together with members of the organization and the sponsors. Also on hand were the Mayor of Pisa, Marco Filippeschi, a member of the Regional Council, Antonio Mazzeo, and the rector of the University of Pisa, Paolo Mancarella, as well as the General Manager of AOUP, Carlo Tomassini.
Here are a few numbers about the Cetilar Pisa Half Marathon, a date included in the national FIDAL (Italian Track and Field Federation) calendar : more than 250 volunteers involved in the organization of the event, among the most important running races of central Italy in terms of participation and because of the extraordinary beauty of the route, about 1,200 barriers and 300 marks to delimit the course, 4,000 snacks, 200 kilos of grapes, 60 kilos of oranges and the same amount of bananas distributed to the runners, more than 50,000 views on the FB profile of the event in less than 24 hours and plenty of downloads for the APP Cetilar Run created by Calabughi Entertainment Games and available at APP Store for IOS and Android devices, a fundamental tool to get the most out of the marathon context and where all the final rankings of the Cetilar Pisa Half have been published.
It was a great success for our initiatives, which allowed the athletes, both before the start and after the finish, to take advantage of the many Cetilar massage points offering the services of physiotherapists to the runners, one of the classic services of PharmaNutra – always committed to promoting its products to the athletes ”directly on the playground” – which will also be present this Sunday with the Huawei Venice Marathon.