Organisers

The Limassol Marathon was founded by GSO (Gymnastic Sports the Olympia). As of June 2009 GSO has passed the Race and the organization of the next and future Marathons to Olympus Events Management Ltd (OEM).

OEM is a new company that has been set up for the purpose of organizing and developing events of excellence, such as the Limassol Marathon GSO.

OEM has been developed by Honeywell Incentives, a company under the umbrella of Andy Spyrou Group, which has extensive experience in staging events in many fields, with their expertise ranging from creativeness and innovation to logistics and organization.

A partner in OEM is George Karagianis, who is also the Race Director. George is a veteran athlete and Marathon Runner.

The organizing team headed by Spyros Spyrou, the Managing Director and the ‘driving force’ of OEM has taken a personal commitment to turn the Limassol Marathon GSO into one of the best known and successful Marathons in Europe, in all respects.

GSO is the oldest Athletic Association of Cyprus founded in 1892. It played a leading role in the foundation of SEGAS (Greek Federation of Amateur Athletics) and also established the Pan- Cypriot Games with the first games taking place in Limassol in 1896.

GSO participated in the first Olympic Games in 1896 in Athens and succeeded by gaining a golden medal in the pistol.

From then, GSO developed intense athletic activity in Cyprus and Greece. In 1925 it organized and hosted Pan-Hellenic Track and Field Championships, while in 1928 established the Pan -Cypriot School Games. In 1929, GSO made a revolutionary move, allowing the participation of women in sport and thus played a leading part in the social evolution of Cyprus.

A landmark for GSO was the victory of its athlete Stelios Kyriakidis in the Boston Marathon in 1946 while a lot of its athletes were distinguished in Balkan and Pan- European Games.

Born in Cyprus in 1909, Stelios Kyriakidis , ran the marathon in the 1936 Olympics and entered Boston Marathon two years later but failed to finish.

During World War II, Kyriakidis was rounded up with several other Greeks by German soldiers. When the soldiers came across his Berlin Olympic credentials, they released him. All the other men were shot.

He strongly felt that God had spared him for a reason and after the war was over, decided – at age 36 – to re-enter the Boston marathon that he could not complete as a younger man. Despite warnings from doctors prior to the marathon that he could die if he ran, Stelios Kyriakidis entered and won the race on April 20, 1946, in record-breaking time: 2hr 29m 27s. His record would stand until the late 1960s. After finishing the race, his comments to the US media were: “Please, don’t forget my country!

After his victory, he campaigned for humanitarian aid for Greece whose economy had been wrecked by war, occupation and civil conflict. He returned to Greece to a hero’s welcome bringing with him aid worth $3,000,000!

Stelios Kyriakidis also competed in the 1948 London Olympics finishing 18th, however, his mark on history had already been made.

He died in 1987 at the age of 77, which was the number he wore at the 1946 race that made him famous.

The big athlete of GSO remained for ever faithful to GSO, the association that brought him to fame, honoring in this way the oldest athletic association of our country.