40 int'l elite runners to vie for Subic Marathon's $5,000 top prize

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT – Some 8,000 participants, including some 40 international elite runners, will vie for the Subic Marathon's $5,000 top prize on January 20, organizers told the media today. Race director Ponce Piñones said that 42-kilometer marathon to be run on the streets of the Subic Bay Freeport will be the biggest to be held in the Philippines so far. Some 5,500 runners had already confirmed their participation, noting that the top prize of $5,000 is "the biggest in the history of the country’s marathon races." Top Kenyan runner Paul Mbugua leads a pack of top runners from Singapore, Australia, Great Britain, Malaysia, Ethiopia, Morocco, and Malaysia. Twenty-year-old running sensation Cresciano Sabal will lead the Filipino crop of elite runners in the event, according to Piñones. Last November, Sabal won the 31st National Milo Marathon, clocking 2 hours, 22 minutes, and 57 seconds. Piñones said that some 350 policemen will secure the race course with the helpd of some 500 volunteers from the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA), civic groups, and other local government units. Besides from the grueling 42-km run, participants can also join the 3, 5, 10, and 21 kilometer races, all of them to be run inside the picturesque roadways of Subic Bay. "It is time that the Philippines has its own Boston marathon or a New York marathon, and this is it," Jay Adlao Block, president of Outbound Asia and a member of the organizing committee said. She added that the Subic Marathon is one of only two races in the country that was accredited by the Association of International Marathons and Distance Races (AIMS). Five of the largest and most prestigious races in the world such as the Boston, New York City, Chicago, London, and Berlin are also accredited by IAMS. Adlao-Block said many of the runners competing are in the thick of their preparations with some clocking as fast as 2 hours and 14 minutes. "With 29 days to go, their times could come down further," she said. Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie set the world fastest time for a 42 km marathon at the Berlin marathon this year clocking 2:04:26, erasing Kenyan Paul Tergat’s record of 2:04:55. - John Bayarong, GMANews.TV