Hungary’s Tamás Bódis set a Spartathlon course record on Sunday, September 27, completing the roughly 245-kilometer (152-mile) race from Athens to Sparta in 19:40:51.
Bódis beat the 19:55:09 mark set by Greece’s Fotis Zisimopoulos in 2023 by 14 minutes and 18 seconds. Race organizers confirmed Bódis’s finish as a new course record.
Zisimopoulos finished second this year in 20:32:41, followed by Finland’s Tomi Ronkainen in 21:26:36. Bódis had previously won the race in 2019.
There was a milestone in the women’s race, too. Greece’s Despoina Simantrakou finished first in 24:45:43, placing 13th overall. She had finished second among women in 2025, when she ran 25:37:44. Greek reports described her victory as the first by a Greek woman in the event.
The Spartathlon starts beneath the Acropolis and ends at the statue of King Leonidas in Sparta. Held each September, it retraces the journey attributed to Pheidippides, the ancient messenger said to have run to Sparta to seek help before the Battle of Marathon. The route takes runners across roads and trails and over Mount Parthenio during the night.
