AIMS Certified Race

Tomsk International Marathon courses — full marathon and half marathon — are AIMS certified distances.

What is a certified course? AIMS certification means that the course was measured professionally and that the distance is exactly as stated in the certificate — to centimeters.

Association of International Marathons and Distance Races is an international association of over 300 marathons and other races held in 95 countries.  AIMS set the standards for races organization, measures and certifies race courses, records official results of the races, and recognize world records sets on such courses! AIMS is a collective member of the IAAF.

All official IAAF / AIMS measurers take special training and pass exams before they are admitted to measurement of actual marathon courses. Great responsibility rests with the Measurer as thousands of people have been training for a long time to take this race, they are striving for their best and, most importantly — recognized result. Remember the heat of the last few kilometers on Tomsk Marathon course last year?

So, we had the official AIMS Measurer (Ilya Mikhailovsky) here in Tomsk to carefully measure our course and to issue TWO certificates:

for the full marathon

and half marathon distances.

Why was it so important for us? Because Yarche Tomsk International Marathon is becoming a really big race organized up to all international standards any race of such scale would try to conform to.

In fact, there are THREE main reasons why we invested into certification. Well, almost four.  

REASON ONE

High accuracy of distance measurement is the must in the modern running world. Imagine that you managed to cover your marathon distance a few minutes faster than planned. You are so excited , and then you look at your watch and suspect that the course is a couple of hundred meters off. And now you can never be sure of your personal record. And AIMS certificate guarantees not only correctly measured distance but also proper organization of the race, that is, prompt medical assistance (if necessary), water at refreshment points and much more — it’s worth making sure that you race has AIMS marathon status.

REASON TWO  

Certified races are included into AIMS calendar and get the right to promote themselves in AIMS Distance Running Magazine to to attract more runners from over the world.

That’s how thousands of magazine subscribers learnt about Yarche Tomsk International Marathon! This year Distance Running Magazine published an editorial on the event held in the heart of Siberia. The online version is available here: https://bit.ly/39wbhAz

REASON THREE

There are about 800 official marathon races in the world, and only 6 of them are part of the most prestigious series — the World Marathon Majors. Prize money for the winner is $ 1 million.

Getting to one of the World Marathon Majors’ is very exciting and very prestigious! However, not everyone can get a slot as there are too many applications for the host cities to accommodate such number of runners. But everyone has a chance a you can win a slot in the lottery. An important point:  in some cases, to participate in the lottery you need to qualify — to become a fast runner, that is, to run fast enough to be admitted by your chosen Major. And there is no lottery for some Majors, only qualification. So, you need to run an officially certified distance somewhere to qualify. Where? In Tomsk, for example.

So your time at Tomsk Marathon can lead you to one of the World’s Majors.

And, finally, REASON FOUR.

You are over 40 and you are a passionate runner? This is for you.

The AbbottWMM launched the AbbottWMM Wanda Age Group World Rankings in 2018. Participants in an AbbottWMM Wanda Age Group World Ranking qualifying race will earn points according to their age, time and gender, aligned with the following age groups for men and women: 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69, 70-74, 75-79, 80+.
 
And you can become a participant just running a certified race invited by Abbot and Wanda to become one of the Qualifying Races. AIMS certified Yarche Tomsk International Marathon have all the chances to become such a race October this year!

All FOUR REASONS are good and are worth the efforts.

So join Yarche Tomsk International Marathon June 13, 2020, enjoy an international level race and feel the real weight of the medal when you are over the finish line!