Zurcher Silvesterlauf

Where does the name come from – knowing that the race is not on old year’s eve (which is called “Silvester” in German) in Sao Paulo, Brazil there is the so called “Corrida Internacional de São Silvestre” (Eng.: Saint Silvester Road Race), wich is known to be the oldest and most popular street race. It starts on December 31, 10 minutes before midnight. It is the whole idea to be running into the New Year in the true sense. The Swiss Newspaper Blick picked up that idea 1977 and introduced the Zürcher Silvesterlauf in the city of Zurich. Just – for organisational reasons it never took place on December 31. It was a huge success and the number of runners quickly rose to 10‘000, but then went back down to 4‘000. 1991 the athletics division of TV Unterstrass took over the event from Blick. Under the guidance of Bruno Lafranchi heading the organizational committee the numbers of runners grew from 4‘500 to over 20‘000. With the arrival of Sunday shopping in December and other limiting factors the date was soon to be fix on the penultimate Sunday before Christmas.

The start is placed on the Limmatquai. Please anticipate short provisioning time and position yourself within the field of runners according to your performance level. Elite runners do have the right to stand in the front row.