More by this Author
The organisers of the Standard Chartered Marathon want to improve participation next year with early registration and deadline.
Local Organising Committee (LOC) chairman Peter Gitau disclosed on Monday that they also intend to have customised running numbers for elite athletes.
Gitau said this year’s event that drew 18,000 participants helped raise Sh34 million for the ”Future Makers” Initiative, which was a drop from last year where Sh40 million collected.
“We want to have all the elite runners competing under their names like most of the international marathons,” said Gitau.
He said the prize fund increase from Sh8.5million last year to Sh10.5 million this year was well received.
Gitau said they intend to start registration earlier than July and end a month before the competition. “We launched registration in July and closed it two days before the event and this proved a challenge. We had a prize for those registering early and we will continue with that,” he said.
The winners in men and women’s full marathon pocketed Sh2 million each, up from Sh1.5million last year, a trend that also was extend to half marathon and 10km races.
“Moving the races from the iconic Uhuru Park back to the Nyayo Stadium was also well received,” explained Gitau adding that the issuance of medals to all participants was commended.
Having attained their target of raising $100 million (Sh10 billion) worldwide last year, two years before time with the “Seeing is Believing” initiative, the organisers came up with the “Future Makers” project worldwide. The “Seeing is Believing” iniative Kenyan version raised more than Sh200 million.
Gitau said the new initiative that started last year is geared towards fighting inequality. “We want to help people to pursue education and start business for self employment,” said Gitau.
He said they are helping 20 women at Strathmore University where 10 have been give Sh1 million each to start their own businesses. Gitau said their other initiative, “Goal Programme” 5,000 youth benefit through financial education and 9,000 are getting financial assistance in high school. “Some 75 Kenyans have also had their small and medium-sized enterprises bolstered,” said Gitau.
Brimin Kipruto and Purity Changwony won the 2019 titles.
