With under 24 hours to go before the catcher car begins its chase, Wings for Life World Run organisers said on Saturday that the 13th edition of the global event was on course to be the largest yet. Runners across more than 165 countries will set off simultaneously at 1pm UTC on Sunday, 10 May, in the only marathon-style event in the world where the entire field starts at the same moment regardless of time zone and the finish line catches the runners rather than the other way round.
Vienna's Schönbrunn Palace flagship race, which is once again the symbolic centre of the event, has sold out for the third year running. The Austrian capital will host more than 7,000 runners through the palace gardens before they spill out onto the streets of the 13th and 14th districts, while parallel flagship races in Munich's Olympiapark and Sunrise, Florida, were also confirmed at capacity earlier this week. Across the wider event there are more than 500 individual race locations, including hundreds of community-organised App Runs that allow people to take part from anywhere with a working phone.
This year's catcher car field is led by familiar names from elite sport. Half-marathon world record holder Jacob Kiplimo headlines the Vienna catcher car as the men's marker, with Olympic snowboarder Anna Gasser, F1 commentator and influencer Angry Ginge, and a rotating cast of Red Bull athletes pacing the women's field and the regional flagship races. The men's catcher car will hit 35km/h within an hour of the start, leaving each runner to be steadily picked up as the gap closes through the afternoon and evening.
Every entry fee and donation goes to spinal cord research. Last year's edition raised more than £6.5 million for the Wings for Life Foundation, and organisers said on Saturday that registrations and per-runner donations were currently tracking ahead of that pace, with the late surge of App Run sign-ups still expected through Saturday night. The foundation pointed to active research grants on regenerative medicine, neuro-stimulation and rehabilitation as direct beneficiaries of this year's fundraising.
From a competition standpoint, the men's record set by Aron Anderson in the 2023 wheelchair edition (he covered 99.6km before being caught) and the men's running record of 89.99km set by Jo Fukuda in 2022 remain the targets for serious athletes. The women's running record, 68.21km set by Nina Zarina in 2017, has not been threatened in recent years but a flat course at the new Schönbrunn route has been quietly tipped as a possible setting for an attempt. Live coverage from Vienna and the regional flagships will run on Red Bull TV from the start gun on Sunday.