On Wednesday 22nd of January 2025, Timing Ljubljana hosted an online meeting to start the Runners4All - European Students Run project, co-funded by the European Union.

Runners4All is a new project, developed together by Timing Ljubljana, European University Sports Association (EUSA) with its Institute and the City of Ljubljana.
The aim of the project is to connect partners and to organize a large-scale not-for-profit event where a special event focuses on the participation of students. Specific tasks are also inclusion of disabled and other vulnerable target groups into this public event. Timing Ljubljana is the coordinator of this project involving EUSA, National and Regional University Sports Associations and universities as partners across Europe, as well as the City of Ljubljana and Special Olympics - together representing 15 countries. 

To open the meeting, Ales Solar from Timing Ljubljana and Matjaz Pecovnik, Secretary General of EUSA, welcomed all the participants, and congratulated the Federations that showed great performances during Torino 2025 FISU World University Games, as well as wished a great and productive project start to the present participants.

It is unusual to see so many partners taking part in a project, which is why the goal of the meeting consisted in opening the discussion about the roles of the partners for the project. 

Timing Ljubljana is the official organiser of the Ljubljana Marathon, which gathered over 50 000 participants in all three categories combined for the last edition (10km, semi-marathon, marathon). Thus, the organisation has strong expertise in large-scale sports events and offered to all the partners reunited to coordinate the organization of a special category for the 29th edition of the Ljubljana Marathon happening in October 2025, dedicated to students across Europe coming from all of the 11 partner countries. 

In fact, the project will not be focusing on high performance but rather on the motivation and health of the student-athletes. By organizing this special edition, we hope that student runners, beginners or competitors, will not only compete for the win, but also run together and will turn the race into a great personal and collective achievement. Furthermore, not only will students be running, but participants also include mentors, promoters and motivators that are going to be spreading powerful messages among other participants. Moreover, coaches will get directly involved in running preparation. Until the event, some activities will be organized by each one of the partner National University Sport Federations, such as workshops and collective sessions. 

During the project meeting, important dates and information regarding the European Students Run were shared, including the explanation of the individual work packages and the establishment of future bilateral communication flow with each of the partners. 

More information will follow soon with the creation of the official platform devoted to the Runners4All - European Student Run project, within the Ljubljana Marathon event.