Naples Digital Running Festival 2021, we created digital sports tourism

In this suspended life, due to the Covid emergency, most sporting activities have also been frozen. These include marathons, as well as the Naples City Half Marathon, organized by Asd Napoli Running, which every year brings together runners from all over the world in the Neapolitan city.

The association, however, has not given up and did not want to give up the usual appointment with its "half marathon", so it has invented an event unique in its kind and launches, therefore, the Naples Digital Running Festival 2021.
In anticipation of finding the runners in attendance in the last week of February 2022, the Naples Running association has transformed this year's 21-kilometer race into a digital marathon. The race will no longer be held on a single day but from February 7 to 28, as far as registrations are concerned, and will run at least until mid-March 2021 for the completion of the distances to be covered.

The motto is "All runners are beautiful" because to run can really be everyone. From adults to children, from the elderly to the disabled, from beginners to veterans, everyone can be the ideal marathoners of this exceptional event.

You can run from all parts of the planet, from Naples to New York, from Australia to New Zealand, from parks to roadways but also from the living rooms of the house and even from the tapis roulants.

Three race distances are foreseen, the Half Marathon with its 21 km, the Twingo Relay, that is the 21 km divided into two parts, 10+11 km and the Family Run&Friends of 5 km dedicated to families and children. You can choose one or all of them.

From this link https://napoli.realbuzzevents.com/it/ it is possible to access directly to the platform completely dedicated to the Napoli Digital Running Festival 2021 and therefore to all the useful information for registrations and participation of runners.

Distances can be covered in one or even several days. Just monitor your run through a dedicated App, polar Beat for example, or even the treadmill, then send a photo or screenshot, in case of App, and upload them in the personal area of the platform. At the end of the event, two rankings will be decreed, with as many winners, which will be divided between those who have completed the route in one day and those who have completed it in several days.

The cost of registration includes the race bib, the diploma of participation and the personalized medal, the latter doubly special because in addition to containing the name and time of the runners, is a true work of art dedicated to Diego Armando Maradona. Everything is shipped directly to your home.

As already mentioned, on February 28 only the registrations end, while the chosen routes can be completed until late March, at a date to be decided during the event.

The association Napoli Running has thought of everything in detail to make this unique version of the Naples Digital Running Festival 2021 even more exceptional and engaging for all its marathon runners. Always included in the registration, in fact, the training programs of trainers, a series of tourist and cultural content of Naples within the virtual Expo, a race training that indicates where you are training and even, what struck me most, a Spotify playlist with typical Neapolitan songs to enjoy during the runs and beyond. All registrants have access to race merchandise developed with adidas and the ability to run for charities by adding the desired contribution to make a donation. In this edition we run for the Santobono Children's Hospital, La Casa di Matteo which is a social health community for children and the non-profit organization Sport Senza Frontiere.

The virtual expo is the element that distinguishes the Naples Digital Running Festival 2021 from other events. It is an event of international importance that the association has created together with the City of Naples, so in the expo you can admire a series of tourist content, made available by Visit Italy, which present the beauty of the Neapolitan city to thousands of runners around the world.

A global event with which Napoli Running, the City and Visit Italy have the additional intent to boost tourism in 2021 and 2022.

A virtual event, born for need but already destined to become a format that will become a tradition and will cooperate with the marathon in presence on the road.

This was anticipated by Luigi Varriale, organizer of the Naples Digital Running Festival 2021.

"I can say that we have created digital sports tourism, so the virtual expo is fundamental. Covid has only given us the opportunity to accelerate digitization, so we already don't see it as a 'forced' trend anymore but as a goal to pursue."