Athletics Kenya president Jack Tuwei has disclosed that dozens of foreign runners from 40 different nations will toe the line for different races at the Nairobi City Marathon on Sunday.
The marathon is one of the most lucrative events in Kenya, offering the highest amount of prize money for the top finishers, something that has likely attracted marathoners from different nations.
Runners from India, Belgium, Russia and Uganda are some of the marathoners headlining the field with the prize money at stake. At the event, the race categories eligible for prize money include the full marathon, half marathon and the 10km expressway run.
For the full marathon, the winners will bag Ksh 3.5 million. The winners of the half marathon will walk away with Ksh 150,000. In the 10km expressway run, the winners will pocket Ksh 100,000.
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“Kenya is known in terms of the marathon and the only person who has run below two hours is from here, Eliud Kipchoge. We already have quite a number of foreigners from China (150) and we have some from the United Kingdom, 75 Americans and 56 Tanzanians and the rest are from many countries,” Tuwei said in a press conference ahead of the event.
“We have others from France, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Japan, Sweden, Serbia, Australia, Belgium, Finland, Ghana, Switzerland, Burundi, Czech Republic, Namibia, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Israel, Colombia, Libya, Norway, India, Russia, and Thai Land. It’s becoming a very popular marathon, from 40 different countries and we welcome all of them. The expressway team has done a lot and given enough support,” he added.
He added that registration is ongoing and they expect to reach the target, of 15,000 runners, by Saturday.
Tuwei urged those yet to register to ensure they do so before the deadline which will be Saturday evening. However, if they reach the target before then, registration will be closed.
“At the moment, everything is ready and the registration started and we already have 731 marathoners registered for the full marathon. For the half marathon, we have 3555, for 10km, we have 4278 and for the 6km, we have 1,986, which brings us to a total of 10,650,” he added.
