São Silvestre is the Xmas Running event of Porto

Rui Pedro Silva won the men's race for the seventh time and the winner of the women's competition was Catarina Ribeiro. One of the most emblematic and oldest running events in Portugal, the Saint Silvester Road Race (Corrida de São Silvestre in Portuguese) is inspired by the one from Brazil, regarded as the major international athletics events in Latin America. 

The history behind the São Silvestre Race is religious, it is held on Saint Silvester's Day - the day in which the Catholic saint, who was a Pope, died in the 4th century of the Christian Era.

Originally for men only, like most sport events, female participation happened only in 1975, the International Year of Women, declared by the United Nations, when the race organizers held the women's race for the first time.

The success of São Paulo's São Silvestre Race was replicated to several other countries like Portugal, Italy and Spain every late December. Porto is one of the most popular S. Silvestre in Portugal.

The race started at 8 pm, and the number of participants was over 11,000 in the main event. The oldest male athlete in the race was 82 years old, while the oldest female athlete was 66 years.

A new feature for this year's race was that each participant was given an interactive medal, so as to get a print with their race total time.

RACE RESULTS

Men's race:

1st. Rui Pedro Silva (Sporting), 30m21s

2nd. Hélder Santos (Sporting), 30m31s

3rd. Miguel Ribeiro (Olímpico Vianense), 30m32s

4th. Daniel Gregório (Centro de Atletismo de Seia), 30m36s

5th. Nuno Lopes (Centro de Atletismo de Seia), 31m15s

Women's race:

1st. Catarina Ribeiro (Individual), 33m13s

2nd. Karolina Nadolska (Individual), 33m15s

3rd. Salomé Rocha (Individual), 34m08s

4th. Inês Monteiro (Centro de Atletismo de Seia), 34m22s

5th. Susana Godinho (Sporting), 34m28s