Sheekha Bureau
Port Blair, Dec 16: Good news for sports lovers, the next Andaman Marathon 2015 will be held on 1st February 2015.
In a press conference held at the conference hall of TSG Emerald hotel, Mr G. Bhasker, President, ACCI said that like previous years ACCI is organizing Andaman Marathon in 2015, but there are some changes in the dates because last year ACCI faced a lot of problems due to rain in November.
He said that because of rain ACCI has changed the dates for the convenience of runners
“As usual the main sponsor for this event is makemytrip.com and we have a lot of co-sponsors also,” Mr Bhasker said.
Further addressing the media Mr Mohd Jadwet, Chairman of the advisory committee, ACCI said that more sponsors will be joining the even as ACCI’s budget for the event is quite high that of last year.
“This year Andaman Chamber of Commerce is conducting this marathon in association with Andaman Administration and all its departments like Sports, Youth Affairs, Education department, the Health Department, the Police department plus the Andaman & Nicobar Command, which provide all possible support every year and also provide runners. This year we are giving ample time to all runners so that they can start practicing and I am also happy to inform you that this time we are expecting 20-25 foreign professional runners. In recent marathon at Pune there were nearly 180 foreign runners and they all were informed about the Andaman Marathon and after doing Delhi, Goa, Kolkata they are going to come here and we are offering them seats in our chartered flights. The LG has told us that we can take seats for them in our chartered flights so that we have quality runners so that we can get that kind of mileage. Our Lt. Governor will flag off the marathon,” Mr Jadwet added.
Further Mr Jadwet added that Rahul Bose will continue to be Andaman Marathon’s brand ambassador. “He has always showed his keen interest in this program. The total prize money this time is 7 lakhs and we will be distributing this in different events. The first major event is “Run for Fun” where the running will start from Cellular Jail to Netaji Stadium and this event will be “open to all” like anybody old or young can join this event, we are hoping for more and more people for joining this event.
The other main category is Half Marathon where most of the professional runners will be running the first prize for this half marathon will be Rs 1lakh, 2nd prize will be Rs 50000 and the third prize will be of Rs 30000 and there will be special prize for the islander who will come first. The third event will be 10K which is the most popular event where more than 300-350 participants take part and there is a special prize for senior categories Male above 50 and female above 50,” Mr Jadwet further added.
He said that the registration will start from 25th of December and will be closed on 25th January. The forms are available in the stadium as well as in the office of ACCI. The registration fees for 10K is Rs 300 and 21K the registration form costs Rs 500.
