NAIROBI, July 31 (Xinhua) -- This year's Nairobi Standard Chartered International marathon scheduled for Oct. 28 expects to have over 25,000 participants, organizers said Tuesday.
Dubbed as one of the toughest marathons in the world, The Standard Chartered Bank which organizes the event, are hopeful the race will continue unearthing new talents to go on and conquer the world.
Among the top names that have emerged from Nairobi to conquer big city marathon is world marathon record holder Dennis Kimetto.
Last year, over 20,000 people took part in the marathon which witnessed former champion Joshua Kipkorir, Ronny Kipkoech, who finished second at Lagos City Marathon and the 2016 Los Angeles Marathon champion Weldon Kirui.
"This year we are targeting to raise 600,000 U.S. dollars for charity work. All the proceeds from registration will be channeled to the 'Seeing is Believing' initiative, which focuses on addressing avoidable blindness among children below 15 years," said Standard Chartered Bank Kenya CEO, Lamin Manjang, on Tuesday.
Kenya has a rich reservoir of marathon runners and it will take something special from foreign legion to raffle the status quo.
The marathon has helped the bank raise over 2.5 million dollars since its inception in 2003. Among the programs funded so far include screening of 6.2 million people, 170,000 surgical interventions, training of over 2,000 health workers and upgrading of more than 10 health facilities around the country.
The organizers have maintained last year's route for the 2018 race which starts within the Central Business District and snakes through the city to enable participants, especially foreigners appreciate the historic sites in the Kenyan capital.
However, some minor changes will be made on the location of the race starting points.
