Spain’s Snap Election Pushes the Seville Half-Marathon Back Two Weeks

The Seville Half-Marathon will be run on Sunday, Dec. 13, two weeks later than planned, after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called a snap general election for the same day as the race.

Sánchez dissolved both houses of parliament on Oct. 5 and set the vote for Sunday, Nov. 29. The race had a new date by that evening. In an email to entrants, organizers called the clash a circumstance “completely beyond the control of the race organization” and said Dec. 13 had been agreed with Seville City Council. Shutting the city center for a road race while polling stations are open was judged unworkable on security and logistics grounds, according to Andalucía Información, which first reported the change on Monday.

The timing is awkward for a race having its biggest year. The 32nd edition has 24,500 entrants, the most in its history, and about 5,000 of them are coming from outside Spain, many with flights and hotel rooms already booked for the last weekend of November.

Registered runners don’t need to do anything to keep their place, since bib numbers carry over to Dec. 13 automatically. Those who can’t make the new date can move their entry to the November 2027, 2028 or 2029 edition through the Runner’s Private Area linked from their confirmation email, but only until Tuesday, Oct. 20. The organizers say the deferral is a one-off, offered only because of the date change. Anyone who would rather have their money back falls under the refund terms already set out in the race regulations.

A New Slot, Moved Again

November was meant to be a fresh start. Seville’s half has traditionally been a late-January race, and the 2025 edition was run on Jan. 26 with 17,000 runners. In February, the city confirmed the switch to Nov. 29, saying it would help the event grow internationally and fit Seville’s reworked calendar of road races. El Español reported that the new slot left about two months between the half and both the Nocturna del Guadalquivir night race and the Seville Marathon, where Selemon Barega won on his marathon debut.

Moving just one week, to Dec. 6, would have put the race on Constitution Day. The city’s 2026 rules keep races off the streets across the Constitution and Immaculate Conception holidays, which fall two days apart. Dec. 6 is also the date of the Valencia Marathon, so runners who had planned a half in Seville and a full marathon in Valencia now have the order reversed, with Seville seven days after Valencia instead of seven days before it.

Two extra weeks gives most of the field a longer build, although anyone who had already timed a half-marathon taper around late November will need to redraw it.

The course itself is unchanged, and it is about as flat as road racing gets. The Association of International Marathons and Distance Races puts its total elevation change at only 5 meters, the kind of profile that produces fast half-marathon times. Uganda’s Rebecca Chelangat took 41 seconds off the women’s course record there in January 2025, running 1:07:18, which was also a Ugandan national record.