Over a thousand athletes are expected to face off at the inaugural Eldoret Techrun 10km Road Race set for Sunday December 1st 2014 along the City of Eldoret streets ahead of the Eldoret City Investors Forum the following day.
Organized by EldoHub, The Education, Innovation and Technology Company, the race will bring together both elite and the young athletes, competing for the kshs 790,000 prize money when the winner for both men and women will pocket kshs 150,000 with top ten receiving monetary rewards.
EldoHub CEO Magdalene Chepkemoi said that the event will present opportunities for the young people to improve not just in sports but have tech knowledge.
“Kenya is known for long distance running and this is the place to be. We thought the same values will be transferred to the young people through TechRun and Athletics Kenya to support talents in Kenya. As the city of champions, we are known for athletics and we need to leverage on it and the world has gone digital. We want to build the athletes to benefit from technology and other things to enhance their lives,” said Chepkemoi.
She added that they need to work on cyber security and after the race on Sunday, they will up the channel for the Eldoret City Investors Forum set for Monday December 2nd.
“Our event is named Eldoret City Techrun because it is a build up for the main event where we shall discuss about sports and investment, entrepreneurship where 30 innovators shall showcase their talents through the federation,” she said.
Athletics Kenya Central Rift chairman Abraham Mutai said that as the federation, they want to ensure the race is successful in a unique race running for technology.
“At this age and I time, we also want to ensure that we are tech as we run. The race is a build for the big event on Monday and we registered a good number of athletes. We are expecting more than 1000 athletes to compete. This race is very important because it is setting us Athletics Kenya to embrace technology with the Artificial Intelligence is the way to go. Having many events, many talents are discovered,” said Mutai.
Coach David Letting said: “AK now is registering athletes online and that is the way to go. This is technology run for Kenyans. Online registration is done online no manual registration and the reception is good.”
The region secretary Kennedy Tanui was optimistic that the race is an opener and the mission to understand technology.
“We have a system that monitors all events for the federation. The course is very ready and certified where the 10km runners will compete on the loop twice with 5km running once.
Tanui revealed that former 5,000m Commonwealth Games champion Mercy Cherono will lead the elite runners in the 10km.