A Race With No Finish Line
İzmir will host the Wings For Life World Run on 7 May. The event starts simultaneously in 25 countries, and the last competitor caught by the "catcher car" becomes the winner.
The event is organised by the non-profit Wings For Life Foundation, who invests in spinal cord research. Full entry fee as well as the donation provided by the participants goes to the Foundation.
On one day each year, the Wings for Life World Run takes place at event locations across the planet. Everybody starts at exactly the same moment, 11:00 UTC. The start time in İzmir is 14:00 whereas the participants start at 04:00 in California Santa Clarita, and at 21:00 in Melbourne.
In each of the cities the run is held, the competitors who are caught by a car are considered to have finished the race. The Catcher Car gives the runners a 30-minute head start, then takes off. The last runner to be caught by the Catcher Car in İzmir will be the Turkish winner, the last participant remaining in all cities will be crowned the world champion. Last year, the global winner was Giorgio Calcaterra of Italy who covered 88,44 kilometres in Milano before he was caught by the car. Ahmet Bayram with 52,78 kilometres was the winner in İzmir.
Timing services of Wings For Life World Run in İzmir is provided by Depar Timing in cooperation with the German company Datacapo. Depar Timing utilises different timing systems that it owns, and the system used in Wings For Life World Run is ChronoTrack, which times also Paris and New York marathons.