{"id":653899,"date":"2023-10-28T15:33:30","date_gmt":"2023-10-28T13:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deploy.frankfurt-marathon.com\/?p=653899"},"modified":"2023-10-28T15:33:30","modified_gmt":"2023-10-28T13:33:30","slug":"40th-edition-of-the-mainova-frankfurt-marathon-on-sunday-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.frankfurt-marathon.com\/en\/40th-edition-of-the-mainova-frankfurt-marathon-on-sunday-2\/","title":{"rendered":"40th edition of the Mainova Frankfurt Marathon on Sunday: Matea Parlov Kostro – how she became a Croatian Sports Star"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text]Press Release – 40th edition of the Mainova Frankfurt Marathon on Sunday:<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Matea Parlov Kostro: How she became a Croatian Sports Star<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The German roads are much to Matea Parlov Kostro\u2019s liking. Within little more than six months she has celebrated both the biggest success of her career to date and her greatest win. In August 2022 she won the silver medal at the European Championships in Munich which turned her at a stroke into a Croatian Sports Star. This was the first medal won by a Croatan woman in a running event in almost a century of the European Championships. Then in May this year she enjoyed her biggest victory so far. The athlete from Zagreb won the Hanover Marathon, breaking both the course record and her personal best with 2:25:45. This performance placed the 31-year-old firmly among the very best of the European marathon running elite. Now she will run Sunday\u2019s Mainova Frankfurt Marathon.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI decided to run the Mainova Frankfurt Marathon because it\u2019s a fast race with a high-quality field. I always feel good when I run in Germany, that was another factor in Frankfurt\u2019s favour. Another reason was that I am so looking forward to the spectacular run to the finish line in the Festhalle,\u201d explained Matea Parlov Kostro before Sunday\u2019s Mainova Frankfurt Marathon. \u201cMy form is better than ever, the performances in training are better than before the European Championships. I have had a slight cold but feel good now.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy that I no longer have to worry about making the Olympic qualifying time, I\u2019ve made sure of my ticket to Paris. But I want to run a personal best so, of course, there\u2019s always some form of pressure to perform.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Her first sport wasn\u2019t running but handball. \u201cThen one day a sports teacher asked if I wanted to run a 600m race on the track for the school. It meant I didn\u2019t have to go to school that day, so I did it, not that I was bad at my studies, on the contrary.\u201d She finished third off no specific training and her talent was immediately evident. The Croatian\u2019s career was off and running.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

At first she ran middle distance but did not have enough speed over 800 and 1500m to make an impression internationally. Her performances over the longer distances were better, however. She ran 9:08.49 for a Croatian record over 3,000m. Road racing offered still more potential and she has concentrated on this more since 2018, making her marathon debut in Berlin in that year with 2:38:05. She had made great strides since then, literally. At the Valencia Marathon in 2020 she emerged from the lockdown of the Corona pandemic to break 2:30 for the first time, running 2:28:52. This ensured Olympic qualification. Competing in the 2021 Olympic, held in Sapporo, she achieved a highly creditable 21st place in extreme heat. She made big improvement on her shorter distance speed as well in 2022, running a personal best for 10km of 31:54 in Berlin, which stood her in good stead for her eventual silver medal in the marathon at the European Championships later that year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This race transformed her life. \u201cWithout a medal, you\u2019re a nobody in Croatia, but when you win one, you\u2019re a star overnight,\u201d explained Matea Parlov Kostro. \u201cI don\u2019t earn much more money but am regularly invited to appear on TV programmes and people speak to me on the street and want to take a photo of me, especially after a training run when they\u2019ve seen me.\u201d What does she think of the stupendous women\u2019s world record by the Ethiopian Tigst Assefa, running 2:11:53 in Berlin? \u201cWhen I saw the time, I was shocked. I wouldn\u2019t have thought it possible that a woman could run so fast. And she didn\u2019t show any weakness during the race after 30 kilometres, it was astonishing.\u201d The best Europeans have in the past consistently achieved high finishing places and even won medals at the Olympic Games. Asked if she dreamed of winning an Olympic medal in Paris, Matea Parlov Kostro replied: \u201cOf course, an Olympic medal is the dream. But that\u2019s not realistic, the African women are simply too strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Further information can be found at: <\/strong>www.frankfurt-marathon.com<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Please note: The attached photo showing Matea Parlov Kostro in Frankfurt can only be used in association with this press release and with the following credit:<\/strong>www.photorun.net<\/strong><\/a>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”653902″][dhsv_vc_caption text=”Matea Parlov Kostro in Frankfurt | credit: www.photorun.net”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text]Press Release – 40th edition of the Mainova Frankfurt Marathon on Sunday:   Matea Parlov Kostro: How she became a Croatian Sports Star \u00a0 The German roads are much to Matea Parlov Kostro\u2019s liking. Within little more than six months she has celebrated both the biggest success of her career to date and her ganzen Artikel lesen…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":653902,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[362],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-653899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-news"],"acf":[],"newsThumbnail":"https:\/\/www.frankfurt-marathon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/mainova-frankfurt-marathon_2023_Parlov_MateaBib-Frankfurt23_-69-360x202.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfurt-marathon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfurt-marathon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfurt-marathon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfurt-marathon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfurt-marathon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfurt-marathon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":653914,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfurt-marathon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653899\/revisions\/653914"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfurt-marathon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfurt-marathon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfurt-marathon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfurt-marathon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653899"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfurt-marathon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=653899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}