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Denmark-Sweden bridge half marathon sells all 40,000 tickets in two hours

A half-marathon across the Öresund Bridge connecting Denmark and Sweden, scheduled for June 2025, sold out in two hours after tickets went on sale on Thursday.

Published: 11 May 2023 11:22 CEST
Updated: 1 February 2024 16:16 CET
Denmark-Sweden bridge half marathon sells all 40,000 tickets in two hours
Massive queuing was seen on the Bridge Run website, with the Denmark-Sweden half marathon selling out in two hours. Photo: Tobi K

The 21.1-kilometre Bridge Run 2025 will be held on June 15th, 2025 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the bridge’s opening in 2000.

Some 40,000 race bibs were available to participants, with no specific requirements for entry. Hopeful runners experienced interruptions and delays on the event’s ticket platform amid heavy interest when bibs went on sale on Thursday. The event sold out in two hours, organisers later said in an Instagram post.

“Interest has been massive. So massive, our systems had a hard time keeping up. But 40,000 runners are now ready for an unforgettable half marathon on June 15th 2025 on the Øresund Bridge’s 25th anniversary. What a sprint!”, the Bridge Run 2025 account posted.

To put this into context, Copenhagen’s annual city marathon, which sold out in January four months ahead of schedule, has a capacity of 15,000 and opened for registration last autumn. The event had not previously sold out in its history.

READ ALSO: Why has the Copenhagen Marathon seen a jump in popularity?

Several social media commenters noted they had problems with the platform freezing, or their payments going through but no confirmation being received as they attempted to enter Bridge Run.

Ticketing platform Sportstiming said via a banner on its website that the confirmation emails had been delayed due to issues with its own provider.

A banner posted on the Sportstiming website on Thursday. Screenshot

Bridge operator Øresundsbron is working with race organisers MAI (Malmö Allmänna Idrottsförening) in Malmö and Sparta Athletics & Running in Copenhagen to plan the Bridge Run event, in which runners will cross an international border.

“We expected great demand, but we did not expect that all places would be sold out so quickly. Now we want to work to create a fantastic running party for all participants next year,” MAI spokesperson Mats Svensson said in a statement.

Sparta CEO Dorthe Vibjerg said the quick sale provided a basis for organisation of a successful race, and referred to the recent capacity sales of the Copenhagen Marathon and CPH Half events.

“This is absolutely incredible. After a few hours of sales, we can add Bridge Run 2025 to the list of big races that have sold out earlier than expected,” Vibjerg said in the statement.

“We are really looking forward to organising Bridge Run 2025 next summer and the quick sale gives us peace of mind to secure the framework for the race so that participants get as optimal a running experience as possible,” she said.

The route for the half marathon will begin in Copenhagen suburb Tårnby, which is located on the island of Amager close to the Öresund Bridge entrance. It will cover the full 16 kilometres of the tunnel and bridge sections of the crossing and finish in Swedish city Malmö.

A running race was held more regularly on the bridge in its early years, but no event has taken place on the crossing since 2010.

Member comments

  1. Myself and several other colleagues joined the ‘queue’ to sign up before 12.00 on 1 Feb but were all unsuccessful. The website kept crashing and pages not loading. Shame to miss the chance for this one-off opporunity

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TRAVEL NEWS

Where Malmö plans to place its first three Copenhagen Metro stops

Politicians in the Swedish city of Malmö have decided where the first three stops will be if a new Öresund Metro is built, linking the city to the Danish capital - and they are planning on using the earth excavated to build a whole new city district.

Published: 24 April 2024 15:56 CEST
Updated: 27 April 2024 15:06 CEST
Where Malmö plans to place its first three Copenhagen Metro stops

Malmö and Copenhagen have been pushing for an Öresund Metro linking the two cities since at least 2011, but so far neither the Swedish government nor the Danish one have committed to stumping up their share of the roughly 30 billion Danish kroner (47 billion Swedish kronor, €4 billion) required.

Malmö hopes the Swedish government will take a decision on the project this autumn, and in preparation, the city’s planning board last Thursday took a decision on where the first three stops of the Öresund Metro should be placed.

They have selected Fullriggaren (currently a bus stop at the outermost tip of the city’s Västra Hamnen district), Stora Varvsgatan, in the centre of Västra Hamnen, and Malmö’s Central Station, as the locations of the first three stops, after which the idea is to extend the metro into the city. 

Stefana Hoti, the Green Party councillor who chairs the planning committee, said that the new Fehmarn Belt connection between the Danish island of Lolland and Germany, which is expected to come into use in 2029, will increase the number of freight trains travelling through Copenhagen into Sweden making it necessary to build a new route for passengers.

Part of the cost, she said, could come from tolls levied on car and rail traffic over the existing Öresund Bridge, which will soon no longer need to be used to pay off loans taken to build the bridge more than 20 years ago.  

“The bridge will be paid off in the near future. Then the tolls can be used to finance infrastructure that strengthens the entire country and creates space for more freight trains on the bridge,” Hoti told the Sydsvenskan newspaper.

According to planning documents given out by the city planning authorities, the stop at Fullrigagaren would be called Galeonen and would be roughly, the one at Stora Varvsgatan will be called Masttorget, and the third stop would be called Malmö Central.  

Source: Malmö Kommun

After Fullriggaren the next stop would be at Lergravsparken in the Amagerbro neighbourhood, which connects with the current M2 line, after which the there will be four new stops on the way to Copenhagen Central, including DR Byen on the current M1 line. 

The hope is that the Öresund Metro will reduce the journey time between Copenhagen Central and Malmö Central from 40 minutes to 25 minutes. 

Source: Oresunds Metro

But that’s not all. Excavating a tunnel between Malmö and Copenhagen will produce large amounts of earth, which the architect firm Arkitema has proposed should be used to extend Malmö’s Västra Hamnen district out into the sea, creating a new coastal district called Galeonen, meaning “The Galleon”, centred on the Fullriggaren Metro stop. 

This project is similar to the Lynetteholm project in Copenhagen, which will use earth excavated for the Copenhagen Metro extension to build a peninsular in front of Copenhagen Harbour, providing housing and protecting the city from rising sea levels. 

Rather than producing a sea wall to protect the new area from rising sea levels, Arkitema and its partner, the Danish engineering firm COWI, have proposed a new coastal wetland area. 

“Instead of building a wall, we extended the land out into the sea. Then a green area is formed which is allowed to flood, and over time it will become a valuable environment, partly as a green area for Malmö residents, partly because of the rich biodiversity that will be created there,” Johanna Wadhstorp, an architect for Arkitema based in Stockholm, told the Sydsvenskan newspaper. 
 
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