The Wings for Life World Run has grown into a powerful global event that brings people together year after year, it has also become a personal tradition for me. For the past 12 years, the Zadar edition of the race has held a permanent spot on my calendar. What keeps bringing me back is not only the noble and important cause, but also the incredible scale of the event. Each year, more and more people sign up, adding to the energy and atmosphere that make this race so unique. Zadar, with its familiar streets and stunning coastline, may not change much from year to year, but the participants do. The energy, effort, and feeling they bring make every edition of this race visually distinct. Even if the route stays the same, the faces, stories, and spirit never do. After so many years of photographing this event, I still meet new people every time, fresh faces among the regulars. And that’s part of what makes it so special to capture.
On May 4th, for the 12th time, the world came together to run for those who can’t. Nearly a third of a million runners, wheelchair users, and professional athletes across the globe took part in the Wings for Life World Run. At exactly 11:00 am UTC, a record-breaking 310,719 participants from 191 nationalities set off simultaneously in 170 countries, running, walking, or rolling to stay ahead of the moving finish line known as the Catcher Car. In Zadar, around 8,000 participants gathered along the Liburnian coast, including professional and recreational runners as well as those in wheelchairs, all united in support of spinal cord injury research. This year’s winners in Zadar were Sławomir Kaliski, who covered 55.07 km in the men’s race, and Nataša Šustić, who won the women’s competition with 46.98 km. Globally, Jo Fukuda of Japan set a new event distance record with 71.67 km to claim the men’s title. Esther Pfeiffer of Germany reached 59.03 km to become the women’s global champion.
Whether participants were everyday heroes or international celebrities, their collective effort raised millions to help brilliant researchers take the next steps toward finding a cure for spinal cord injury. Since the first edition in 2014, a total of 1,870,253 participants have raised 60.53 million euros through the Wings for Life World Run. So far, 324 promising research projects and clinical trials have been supported by the Wings for Life Foundation since its founding in 2004, all carefully selected through a rigorous review process.