The White Nights Marathon was first held in 1990 during the
White Nights Festival in
Leningrad, Russia. Initially, the marathon was conceived as a night marathon—the runners started at 11 p.m. and finished the following morning. In recent years though, the race has started at 8 a.m. Sunday morning. No race has been held since 2020. It returns come 2024.
2007 The XVIII edition of the race saw 1,300 runners start the marathon.
Pavel Andreyev won for the men in 2:16:26, after running ahead of contenders Aleksy Veselov and
Vladimir Ponomaryov. For the women,
Yulia Gromova (a local runner) set a new course record with her win in 2:37:57.
2011 The XXII edition took place June 26, 2011. In the marathon, 977 people finished; in the
10K run, 830 people finished. Athletes from Morocco who lived and trained in Spain won the first two places in the marathon. Abdulah Tagraft won in 2:14:12, Hasan Ahagur took second (2:14:15) in a close finish. Russian marathon runner
Sergey Lukin from
Toksovo finished third (2:16:48). For the woman's marathon, Alevtina Ivanova from
Yoshkar-Ola won in 2:38:26.
2012 The XXIII White Nights International took place on July 1, 2012. The marathon race also served as the Russian Cup race. The race grew to 1,170 finishers while 987 finished the 10K. The winners of the marathon in 2012 were the runners-up from the past year: Hasan Ahagur for men, Vera Trubnikova for women. In addition, Vera Trubnikova set a course record in 2:35:35.
2013 The XXIV version took place on June 30, 2013. This year, the marathon was sponsored by Ergo for the first time. Even more runners (1,400) from 40 countries came to St. Petersburg to start the marathon. The 10K participation grew to 1,607 finishers Kenyan Peter Kwalir took first in the marathon (2:14:30) for men, Russian Tatyana Belkina won for the women (2:44:56). In the 10K, athletes from St. Petersburg took first: Artur Burtsev for men in 31:02 and Yulia Chizhenko for women in 33:53.
2015 On June 28, more than 11,000 people from 54 countries took part in the XXVI marathon weekend. The winner of the marathon was Mikhail Bykov in 2:20:32. The winner of the 10K was again Artur Burtsev with a time of 30:24.
2016 In 2016, about 4,000 athletes started at the marathon; 6,000 started the 10K. The winners of the marathon were athletes from the Samara region
Yuri Mikhailovich Chechun and
Nadezhda Leshchinskaya, who, despite the abnormal heat, showed fast times (2:20:27 and 2:39:57, respectively). ==Marathon race results==