The figure for the 21 kilometre track is 8,500, while 7,000 feel ten kilometres is the right distance for them. Thousands more will meanwhile participate in the Saturday races for children and secondary school students.

The marathon will start on Slovenska cesta and finish on Kongresni trg square, while the route will take runners through the inner and outer parts of Ljubljana.

In what is a first for the Ljubljana marathon, the route is a full figure-eight-loop, meaning runners will not be rerunning the 21km track as was the case in the previous years.

"This single loop has allowed the number of participants to increase by 1,000," Andrej Razdrih of the organising committee told the press, speaking of a historic moment and a route shape that even Pablo Picasso would be proud of.

Razdrih meanwhile warned that traffic in Ljubljana, which is a small city without underground transport, will be severely disrupted for eight hours.

The total budget of the event is around EUR 1m, 25% of which will be provided by the city, 33% by sponsors, while the reset is expected to come from registration fees, which have been growing each year along with the number of participants.

The winner of the marathon can expect EUR 12,000, the runner-up 8,000, while EUR 5,000 have been earmarked for third place. Record times could increase the total jackpot to up to EUR 20,000.

Ljubljana Mayor Zoran Janković hopes that the top prize can be increase to EUR 20,000 next year, which would also attract the world's leading runners.

Kenyan and Ethiopian runners have been dominating at the Ljubljana marathon in recent years. The men's record is held by Daniel Too of Kenya (2:08.25 in 2011) and the women's by his compatriot Kilel Cheptonui (2:25.24 in 2009).

This year doping tests will be introduced also for amateur runners as parts of an awareness-raising campaign carried out by the the Slovenian Anti-Doping Organisation.