Slovakia: Sports in 2024 and 2025

[chrisild]

Slovakia will, when it comes to commemorative €2 coins, be sporty in the next two years. More issues may be added later (each euro country may issue two commems per year), but this is what we know ...

In 2024 there will be a piece dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Košice Marathon. The first marathon there was in 1924 which makes this the oldest marathon competition in Europe. (Between 1938 and 1944, during the Hungarian occupation and WW2, it did either not take place or was organized as an event for Hungarians only.) The race has been modified too; today the course is basically in the city, since 1980 women have been admitted, and in 1994 a half marathon was added.

The 2025 coin will be about the 1925 European (ice) hockey championship which took place in the High Tatra mountains. (See this Wikipedia article in English.) That was the very first international sports tournament in "Slovak territory". The designs of these coins are not known yet.

[chrisild]

As for the "oldest marathon in Europe": Strictly speaking, the first modern marathon was in 1896, at the Athens Olympics ... in Europe.   But that is only every four years, and takes place wherever the Games of the Olympiad take place. The Košice Marathon, however, is an annual event, and basically at the same location every time. Just like its "model", the Boston Marathon that was first organized one year after the 1986 Olympics, or the London, Tokyo etc. marathons.

By the way, since the early 1950s the marathon in Košice has been the "Peace Marathon". This year's event, on 1 Oct 2023, will already have the "100" jubilee label (even though 1938 had to be canceled, and 1940 was in Budapest AFAIK) simply because when you count the number of event years, you include the first one.

[Angus]

They love their sports, many of their annual coin sets are sport-themed even if the coins aren't.