Regional Competition

The film Marathon Men centres around the longest race in Europe, covering a distance of 227 kilometres from Vukovar to Srebrenica. The story follows three protagonists, Elvir Rakipović, Robert Kasumović and Duško Štrbac, war veterans of different ethnicity who run together. In 1991, as very young men, all three of them joined the Croatian armed forces as volunteers, got wounded and after the war, due to harassment and the manner in which war veterans were treated by the government, they developed PTSD. All three of them managed to navigate through difficult times and to succeed in life. Running helped them and now they are running to help others. They dedicated the race to all the innocent victims who lost their lives in the period from 1991 to 1995 and by doing so paid homage to the victims of Vukovar and Srebrenica. Physical and psychological preparations take place for a whole year before the sporting endeavour. Although this is a competition, there are no losers in this race.