Like so much else in life, The Great Wall Marathon came into being quite by chance, and later, this resulted in the formation of Adventure Marathon.

One hot summer day in 1998, a group of staff from Albatros Travel met in an office on Kultorvet, a square in central Copenhagen, to develop new and unique ideas for future destinations. Suddenly, one of them burst out: “How about a marathon on the Great Wall of China?” Everybody agreed that the idea was crazy, but there was something rather exciting about it all the same, and the ball was in play. The idea had been proposed by Thomas Thomsen, chairman of the Danish Athletics Federation, and marathon runner and tabloid reporter Peter Fredberg. It then resulted in a research trip to China to have a look at the Wall and talk to the different authorities. Getting everything to fall into place was due not least to the invaluable the fact that Albatros Travel already cooperated with a local agent, Guo Feng, who has since been the run’s cooperating partner in China.

Guo Feng found four areas he felt the committee should have a look at, and first priority was quickly given to Huangyaguan, which also became the ultimate location. A historic event had been created.

The Danish Athletics Federation was not exactly unaccustomed to organising major events. The Federation had regularly hosted the European Cup for national teams and had also organised major international conferences. Not least, it had been responsible for the organisation of a World Championships in Denmark. One could of course argue that organising a run for 300 people was not exactly a major task. But it turned out not to be quite as easy to organise a race 7,000 kilometres away.

Thomas Thomsen set off for the Far East, and his mind pondered the idea of narrow paths, dangerous stone steps and other circumstances that could endanger the runners, along with all the other hundreds of details he had to check out. Of course, everything didn’t fall into place at once. Some things had to be changed later on, but they all belonged to the bagatelle category. For example, it transpired that it was not a good idea to have the start and finish in two different places, and from 2000, both were at the Yin and Yang Square. But it goes without saying that these were organisational things that had to be adjusted along the way when organising such a large event.

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