Over 20,000 participants expected to electrify Nairobi Standard Chartered Marathon

[PHOTO: COURTESY]

Nairobi City comes alive when the 15th Standard Chartered Marathon gets underway on Sunday morning.

More than 200 elite runners, who will use the contest to test grounds ahead of next year's marathon races, will chase the Sh8m prize money on a re-designed course.

There are major route changes on the course after the event was moved from its traditional start at Nyayo Stadium to Railway Club. Nyayo is unavailable due to renovation works currently going on there.

Traffic in and out of the Central Business District (CBD) will be affected.

Several roads within the CBD will be closed and traffic in and out of the city will be diverted to alternative roads as the course remains closed between 4am and 1pm on Sunday.

Affected roads include sections of Mombasa Road, Uhuru highway, Upper Hill, Forest Road and Kenyatta Avenue. Other roads are Haile Selassie and University Way, which will be closed until Sunday 11:30am.   

The 21km wheelchair race will flagged off at 6:50am before paving way for the 42km at 7am.  

Joshua Korir, who won last year, is among top runners, who are staging comeback in the race.

Korir was second at the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon in India early this year.

Other athletes itching for glory include last year’s contestants Hillary Kiplimo and Arnold Kibet, who has posted good shows in road races in Italy.

Standard Chartered has injected Sh100m to the event which has served as a launching pad for budding athletes since 2003.

Some of the event’s partners and co-sponsors include Athletics Kenya, Nairobi County Government, IS Solutions, Alpine Coolers, Sanlam Insurance, Safaricom, AUA (CCTV), Avenue Health, Parapet, Subaru Kenya, Kenafric Diaries, KICC, among others.

“We have teams from Nandi, Kericho, Elgeyo Marakwet and Uasin Gishu,” said Peter Gitau, the Local Organizing chairman.