18,000 take part in iconic Standard Chartered marathon run for charity

About 18,000 participants, young and old, braved the chilly morning weather to compete in several races at this year’s Standard Chartered Bank Nairobi Marathon that started and ended at Nyayo National Stadium.

Moving the races back to the stadium from Uhuru Park, the venue that had hosted two previous editions, was marked with great improvement.

The move by the organisers to separate finishing points, with the full marathon (42km) and half marathon (21km) ending inside the stadium arena, helped decongest the finishing zone, leaving a satisfied media and technical officials.

The chaos witnessed last year at the finishing line, with both the full and half marathon ending at one point, wasn’t seen this year as Elgeyo-Marakwet’s Brimin Kipkorir and Purity Changwony’s love affair with the event continued.

The 30-year-old Kipkorir, who won the men’s marathon in 2017, returned to recapture the title in two hours, 10 minutes and 43 seconds and pocket Sh2 million as a reward for his exploits.

Competing in her third marathon, Changwony, 29, had clinched the women’s half marathon during the 2015 event before taking a maternity leave in 2017.

Changwony had all her ducks in a row to win the full marathon this time around in 2:30:34, to also go home Sh2 million richer.

The organisers of this year’s event increased funding from Sh8.5 million last year to Sh10.5 million, which saw the prize money increase from the Sh1.5 million that was won last year.

Local Organising Committee chairman Peter Gitau declared this year’s event a major success despite not hitting their target of 25,000 participants for the “Seeing is Believing” initiative.

“We also had 18,000 people attending last year’s event, but we can’t say why the numbers haven’t improved this year,” said Gitau.

“What we want to explore are ways of increasing the numbers through innovative methods.”

Gitau said one of the ways this can be done is through the introduction of races such as the corporate relay that proved a hit this year. “We have 17 teams, with each having four participants,” he said.

An estimated 252,000 people have participated in the event since its inception 17 years ago.

The Standard Chartered Nairobi Marathon event has over the years proved to be a talent discovery avenue and a stepping stone for many elite athletes.

Former Africa 5,000m champion Sheila Chepkirui, a Kenya Defence Forces soldier, cashed in on the absence of the winner of the two previous editions, Valary Aiyabei, to win the women’s 21km race in 1:11:51.

Just hours after Chepkirui’s exploits, the trailblazing Aiyabei was setting the Frankfurt Marathon alight with a course record-breaking feat. Aiyabei became the first woman to run sub 2:20 in Frankfurt, clocking 2:19:10 to win.