All is set for the 2019 edition of the Standard Chartered marathon which is set to be staged on Sunday 27th October 2019. More than 20, 000 elite and fun runners expected to take part.
Athletics Kenya, AK, will deploy more than 200 technical officials to oversee this year’s Standard Chartered Nairobi Marathon. Barnabas Korir, AK Chairman Nairobi branch said the event organizers are paying extra attention to the technical aspects of the city road race as they bid to have it promoted to the league of the world’s elite marathons.
In line with the international safety provisions, the Nairobi Traffic department today released an elaborate road closure diversions schedule that will see traffic to and out of the city diverted to alternative roads between 4 am and 2 pm.
The affected roads include sections of Mombasa Road, Uhuru Highway, Upper Hill, and Forest road while within the CBD, Kenyatta Avenue, Muindi Mbingu and sections of Haile Selassie and University Way will also be closed.
“We do not expect a major disruption in the flow of traffic. We have carefully organized traffic diversions to ensure that Nairobi county residents have alternative routes to critical locations in the city including hospitals, churches and airports,” said Mr. Joshua Omukata, Traffic Commissioner, Nairobi County.
The event organizers have announced a few changes to the route for the six race categories largely due to relocation of the start and finish points back to in and around Nyayo Stadium.
Speaking during a press briefing, Peter Gitau, the Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee expressed optimism that the goal of raising KES 60 million this year for the FutureMakers initiative will be attained. Gitau said the race’s prize money was increased from Sh 1.5 million to Sh 2 million for the 42km race and from Sh 150,000 to Sh 300,000 for 21km.
“So far, we have registered close to 18,000 participants and we are optimistic of reaching our target. There is a big uptake from both individuals and corporates entries. We expect this trend to boost the numbers towards achieving our target of 25 000 runners,” Mr. Gitau said.
Registration is still open at the Nairobi marathon official website. All proceeds from registration will be channelled to towards “Futuremakers”, the banks’ our new community initiative aimed at supporting disadvantaged young people from low-income households and people with visual impairments, to take part in programmes focused on education, employability and entrepreneurship.
KIT collection is currently ongoing at KICC for all individual entries, for corporates KITS are being delivered to all registered corporates.
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