Wings for Life World Run is a miracle! With 265,818 participants from 192 different countries running, walking or pushing at the same time to make spinal cord injuries curable, it showed that records are there to be broken.
The great 11th edition of the race started at 1 p.m. in 169 countries and ended as soon as the catcher car, the finish line in motion, caught the last participant, Tomoya Watanabe, who ran for those who can’t until the 70th kilometer, while the winner of the Zadar Wings for Life World Run, Kristijan Rubinić reached the 56th kilometer.
The title of global winner was taken by Dominika Stelmach, who covered an impressive 55 kilometers, and the local victory was won by Nataša Šustić, the winner of last year’s Wings for Life World Run in Zadar, who this year ran all the way to Pirovac (51 km). The best among the participants in a wheelchair for the second time in a row was Ante Kolundžija, while the winner, Marija Nikoleta Đivanović, was caught by a catcher car at 11.8 km. This year, the participants in Zadar were joined by Anita Gerhardter, director of the Wings for Life Foundation, who ran 9.6 km, and with her on the course was Croatian football coach and former football player Niko Kovač, who reached the 12th kilometer. An amount equal to 100% of the amount of all entry fees and donations goes to research into a cure for spinal cord injuries, and the figure from last year was exceeded by an incredible 39.66%. This year, a record 8.1 million euros were collected.
More than 250,000 participants around the world ran for those who can’t, either individually with the app, in one of the 345 organized races with the app or at official locations – Zadar, Vienna, Munich, Zug, Breda, Poznan or Ljubljana.