A field stretching over 20 kilometres set off across fifty minutes — Record number of international running tourists, with runners travelling from nearly 1,200 Hungarian towns and villages
The 41st Wizz Air Budapest Half Marathon came to a close on Sunday with Gábor Karsai defending his title and Lili Anna Vindics-Tóth setting a personal best. The event also hosted the field of the 2026 Hungarian Half Marathon Championships. More than 24,000 entries were received across the event’s various distances. The field set off from the 600-metre start straight over a period of almost 50 minutes, with the line of runners winding along more than 20 kilometres of the World Heritage route on the banks of the Danube.
Title defence and a women’s personal best at the front of the field
In the men’s race, 2025 winner Gábor Karsai (Békéscsabai AC) ran a commanding race to finish in 1:04:18, defending his championship title and completing a double on Budapest’s classic distance. In the women’s elite field, Lili Vindics-Tóth (KASI) was in outstanding form, breaking the tape in a personal best of 1:09:21 to claim the national championship title. As in previous years, the elite runners and the ten-thousand-strong field covered the 21.1-kilometre distance from the same start line and along the same route.
One in four Hungarian entrants was running their first half marathon
The day’s main event, the 21.1-kilometre race, attracted more than 17,800 entries. Over ten thousand Hungarian runners chose the classic distance, and 26.6 per cent of the Hungarian half marathoners completed the very first half marathon of their lives. Alongside the half marathon, several thousand runners also took on the Szimpatika 10-kilometre race.
A number of well-known figures lined up in the ten-thousand-strong field. Those completing the 21.1-kilometre distance included Olympic champion boxer István „Kokó” Kovács, world championship medallist rower Péter Galambos and Olympic runner Beáta Rakonczai. Beatrix Trill also took part, as did actresses Réka Tenki and Anna Trokán in a relay team with the Futni mentem group, along with toxicologist Dr Gábor Zacher and Lutheran bishop Péter Kondor.
One of the most remarkable sporting achievements of the day came from Péter Boronkay, ten-time world champion and nine-time European champion paratriathlete, who pushed his friend Dr András Nagy, who has limited mobility, in a specially adapted running chair for the entire 21.1 kilometres.
Participants also supported charitable causes alongside their running: HUF 1,800,000 raised through charity entries goes to Hungarian Interchurch Aid, funding programmes that help disadvantaged children catch up.
Record number of international entrants, more than half of the Hungarian field travelled from outside Budapest
The race set a historic participation record for international running tourists: 8,471 entries were received from 117 countries around the world. Runners from abroad made up 41.5 per cent of the 21.1-kilometre field, with the largest contingents arriving from Great Britain, Slovakia and Germany. Representing the title sponsor, a 350-strong WIZZ team made up of employees from 52 nations also lined up across the various distances.
The largest half marathon of all time mobilised the entire country: 53.8 per cent of Hungarian entrants travelled to Budapest from outside the capital, with runners coming to the event from 1,195 different Hungarian towns and villages.
„We have just been through a fantastic race. During the summer heatwaves and heat domes we were concerned that the extreme temperatures would disrupt preparation and dampen the appetite for entries, but the runners’ determination overcame everything: we have never staged an event on this scale. With more than ten thousand Hungarian entrants and more than eight thousand international runners, we have delivered the largest half marathon in Central and Eastern Europe. Budapest has become an unmissable fixture on the international running map,” said Árpád Kocsis, Managing Director of the Budapest Sports Office (BSI).
Festival atmosphere on the course, immediate clean-up behind the runners
Competitors were accompanied along the route by 22 different musical acts — brass bands, dixieland, Japanese drummers, Brazilian rhythms and DJs — while at the 17-kilometre mark Hungarian Interchurch Aid cheered the runners on from a dedicated supporters’ point.
The smooth running of the huge field was supported by 9 refreshment stations, a 415-strong crew along the route and 17 running doctors. Over the course of the day, 828 kilograms of bananas, 80 kilograms of dextrose tablets, 6,000 litres of isotonic drink and more than 28,000 litres of water were used to look after the athletes.
Working closely with MOHU, the organisers began the clean-up immediately after the field had passed. Thanks to the clean-up crew following the runners, the refuse collection vehicles, the sweeper and sprinkler trucks and the roller-skating team closing out the field, the affected road sections were returned to the capital’s traffic clean and on schedule.
Full results: https://bsieredmenylista.hu/wizz-air-budapest-felmaraton-2026/
