As you approach the last few hundred meters of the race, you are joined by a giant green runner. This statue is an Athenian landmark but was originally designed to occupy Omonoia Square for just one month in 1988, as part of a project to introduce the people of Athens to contemporary artists and the concept of artistic interventions in an urban environment. The sculptor, Kostas Varotsos, created a massive statue (8 meters tall) made of materials that were highly unusual at the time (glass and iron). He called it “Foreigner,” but it soon came to be known simply as “The Runner,” since it seems to imply the movement of a running person about to cross the finish line.