The São Silvestre Race will have its hundredth edition this Wednesday (31). The very traditional street race in São Paulo, which went through very different phases, in size, route and sporting importance, reaches the celebration of its one hundred years showing the popular vocation it assumed after starting with 48 competitors.
The 2025 version of the contest will have 55 thousand participants, a record. The organization increased the number of vacancies, which did not prevent a bottleneck. The registration website crashed, and several of those who attend the event every year did not get their place – with apologies from the promoters and the sales platform, Ticket Sports, which reported 150,000 simultaneous accesses to the system.
Basic registration cost R$319.90, and the initial 50,000 places were filled within a few hours, even with all the technical problems. In response to complaints, an additional 5,000 participation kits were made available.
“I’ve run to São Silvestre for the last ten years. This time, in such an iconic edition, I’m not going to run”, lamented the clerk José Uéslei do Carmo, 39. “I only made it because I was lucky on the Ticket app. They said it would be on the website, but it only worked through the app. Now, let’s go!”, celebrated publicist Leonardo Abdo, 44.
The eagerness to participate in the centenary commemorative edition reflects the reach that São Silvestre has gained. Today it does not attract big athletics stars, but it is consolidated as the main street race in Latin America, 15 km that are offered to amateur athletes, several of whom are dressed in costume.
It has been a tradition for decades for runners to participate in playful costumes and with messages of a social or political nature. Salesman Wilton Souza, 51, promises to appear at the start with a banner criticizing the bill approved in the National Congress that allows the sentences of those convicted of the attacks on democracy carried out on January 8, 2023 to be reduced.
The phrase on the banner is unpublishable in this space, but it will not be the only one displayed on Avenida Paulista, the start and finish location, in front of the Cásper Líbero Foundation building — which is still the organizer of the event, in partnership with the company Vega Sports. It was journalist Cásper Líbero, founder of the newspapers A Gazeta and A Gazeta Esportiva, who came up with the idea for the race.
He was encouraged by a night race he saw in Paris, in which competitors participated with torches. And he created a São Paulo version – also nocturnal, but without torches – which is now in its hundredth edition – no longer nocturnal and with only allegorical torches, present in some costumes.
Always held on December 31st and named after the saint celebrated by the Catholic Church on that day – the first pope, from 315 to 335, after the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire –, the competition was initially restricted to Brazilians and became international in 1945. In 1948, it had already grown to the point where the organization limited the number of runners, with 250 from São Paulo and the rest from Brazil defined in state selections.
Five years later, it received its biggest name, Emil Zátopek, from Czechoslovakia. In 1952, he had achieved a historic result at the Helsinki Olympic Games, with gold medals in the 5,000 m, 10,000 m and marathon. Already renowned as the “Human Locomotive”, it attracted crowds – 800 thousand spectators, according to probably inflated estimates – in 1953 and won with great ease, breaking the record for the 7.8 km route at the time.
His presence at São Silvestre was announced in A Gazeta Esportiva with the title: “The greatest athlete in the world in the biggest pedestrian race in the world”. And he seems to have been really moved by the reception. “I offer my victory to the hospitable Brazilian people. I never, honestly, imagined that I would find my greatest sporting emotion in São Paulo and Brazil,” he said, according to A Gazeta Esportiva.
Zátopek only competed for São Silvestre that year. Kenyan Paul Tergat, another big name in athletics, who became the world record holder in the marathon, is the biggest champion among men, with five titles (1995, 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000). The Portuguese Rosa Mota won six times in a row (from 1981 to 1986) and is the biggest winner.
The women’s competition began in 1975, and the competition went from night to afternoon in 1989 – and then in the morning. The event was not interrupted during the Second World War (1939-1945), but the Covid-19 pandemic prevented it from taking place in 2020. Therefore, even though it opened in 1925, it is now in its 100th, not its 101st, edition.
The (not so) recent dominance has been that of Kenya. Brazil has not had a winner in the women’s race since 2006 (Lucélia Peres) and a winner in the men’s race since 2010 (Marilson Gomes dos Santos). Apparently, the fast will not end in 2025, as the favorites are once again Kenyan athletes.
But there will be a party, with playful costumes and critical messages. At least among those who managed to register.
