Two Ethiopians and two Tanzanians are set to battle for titles at the 6th edition of Eldoret City marathon set for tomorrow, Sunday April 27th in Eldoret, uasin Gishu County.
Speaking today during the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Eldoret City Marathon and the Great Ethiopian Run, race director Moses Tanui said that the foreign athletes will be facing off with Kenyans in the babble for Kshs 3.5 million purse for the winner in both men and women.
Tanui said that the government has come in fully to support the race.
“I want to thank National government for recognizing us as athletes. As sportsmen and women, we are so powerful and we must work hard to support athletes,” said Tanui.
Principal Secretary of Sports Elijah Mwangi said that tomorrow’s event is a big marathon where the two nations will learn from each other especially Eldoret City marathon to learn from the Ethiopian Great run, which has been doing to copy to Eldoret City marathon on how to host 50,000 athletes last year, targeting 55,000 this year.
“For those who will do well tomorrow, the government will sponsor them to compete in Ethiopia to expose talents. As a ministry, we tap, nurture and expose them. Tomorrow, we shall know many untapped talents. I am here to give confidence and the winners’ money have been guaranteed to get but we shall wait until doping results are out,” said Mwangi.
Mwangi added that they have reviewed the prize money for athletes across the board.
“The ministry has a reward program for international events where, we had plans to reward athletes once they get back and now, we have been granted permission to reward our sportsmen and women. At the Olympics, we shall be granted to reward then kshs thee million so I am calling upon athletes to do well and for those that we have not rewarded, we shall do it soon,” said Mwangi.
Speaker of the national Assembly Gladys Boss said that they have a challenge of identifying talents but we only welcome heroes. We want to tell PS that the ministry should be committed in facilitating identifying and nurturing of such talents.