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Runners mark Polish Independence Day

12.11.2019 01:05
Some 18,000 runners hit the streets of Warsaw on Monday to celebrate the restoration of the country’s independence more than a century ago. 
Participants in the 31st Independence Day Run in Warsaw on Monday.
Participants in the 31st Independence Day Run in Warsaw on Monday.Photo: PAP/Piotr Nowak

The annual Independence Day Run was held in the Polish capital for the 31st time. It was one of a string of events to mark 101 years since the country recovered its sovereignty.

The 10-kilometre route led through the centre of the city. Before the start of the race at exactly 11:11 a.m., thousands of participants wearing national red-and-white colours sang the national anthem in a moving display of patriotism.

Poland regained its independence on November 11, 1918, after more than 120 years of foreign rule.

Independence Day Run is part of a series of three major patriotic runs in Warsaw that every year celebrate key events from the nation’s history.

The other two are the May 3rd Constitution Run, which commemorates an 18th-century Polish constitution that was the first such modern set of laws in Europe and the second worldwide, and the Warsaw Uprising Run, which honours the heroes of the bloody World War II revolt against the Polish capital's Nazi German occupiers in 1944.

Tens of thousands of runners take part in these three events every year.

(gs)

Source: IAR, PAP