The mayor of the Greek town of MARATHON (pop. 17,000), Spyridon N. Zagaris, paid a not so everyday visit to the Sports Museum in the Berlin Olympic Park on Friday (16) and Saturday (17) last week.
The Berlin Sports Museum also bears the name "AIMS Marathon-Museum of Running", which the Association of International Marathons and Road Races (AIMS) be-stowed upon it in 1994.
On the occasion of the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) created a marathon museum in Marathon, the original Greek settlement that gave its name to the classic long distance race. Numerous exhibits from the IOC document the history of the Olympic marathon races since 1896.
Horst Milde, the long-time race director of the Berlin Marathon and spokesman for German Road Races (GRR), visited the museum there during the 2004 Olympic Games, bringing along with him many diverse artefacts from the Berlin Marathon. An intensive exchange of ideas ensued between AIMS, GRR, and the birthplace of the marathon.
Spyridon Zagaris, arrived in Berlin with a large delegation from Marathon, and was received with a warm welcome in the “Lichthof” of the House of German Sports by Gerd Steins of the Forum for Sport History – the sponsoring society of the Berlin Sports Museum, Horst Milde, and Heinrich Clausen, the general secretary of the BOC Berlin 2009.
They presented the Berlin Sports Museum with an olive wreath that has been made “metallic” through a new procedure of dipping it in a bronze alloy. The ceremony took place in the “Lichthof” of the House of German Sports in front of the bronze statue, “The Decathlete,” by Georg Kolbe.
In the future, the idea is to ignite a flame before the grave mounds in Marathon, which is to be brought to select major marathons throughout the world as a symbol of freedom and peace. The metallic olive wreaths from Marathon would then be given to the gold, silver, and bronze winners at the awards ceremonies.
As is already the case with the classic marathon in Boston, MARATHON hopes to ar-range a city partnership with Berlin.
