Eldoret City marathon champion Sharon Cherop has advised athletes to invest wisely before hanging their spikes to avoid future embarrassment.
Speaking during the Eldoret City marathon crowning moments in Eldoret on Friday morning, the former Boston marathon champion said athletes have no other income apart from running and if they don’t invest wisely, they may end up languishing.
“We only have a few years of running and we don’t earn pension or retirement benefits but if we invest wisely at this time, we will reap big in future,” said Cherop.
She added that if they want to enjoy future benefits, it is their time to do what is good for them.
“In future after retirement, we need to pay for our own flights not to go abroad to run but to have fun now that we have a name out there we can brag about. Retiring doesn’t mean the end of life but another stage of it,” added Cherop.
As part of an investor in Eldoret town, operating a beauty shop, Cherop was optimistic that she will be defending her title in 2019 after the race was launched today.
The 2019 will be run on April 28th, a week after London marathon. “I will have to prepare well for the title defence and I will have to organize myself in the races that I will compete to avoid missing the race at home,” concluded Cherop who pocked a cool kshs 3 million.
Race director Moses Tanui launched the 2019 second edition following the success of the race that was ran on 22ndApril 2018.
The today’s prize stood at kshs 13.5 million but scaled Kshs 18 million up for grabs.
Tanui said the delay payment was due to anti doping process that had to take place to ensure that they pay clean athletes.
“We didn’t want to pay the cheats. But all athletes who were rewarded today were clean, from fro many doping case that has thrown Kenyan athletes in suspicion,” said the two time Boston marathon champion.