And they're off...

Sunday 01 October 2017

Organisers of the Standard Chartered Jersey Marathon say with more elite athletes signed up for today’s race than ever before, both the men’s and women’s course records could be broken.

The current men’s record for the 26.2 miles is held by Russian Aleksey Troshkin in a time of 2 hours 18 minutes and 32 seconds in 2014. The women’s record holder is France’s Svetlana Pretot in a time of 2 hours 44 minutes 33 seconds set in 2013.

Both the men’s and women’s winners will receive £2,500 in prize money.

At 9:00 more than 500 runners will be heading west from town along the inner road, before running up Waterworks Valley and then going through St Mary, before heading home via St Peter, Corbiere, the Railway Walk and the Avenue.

More than 1,500 people have registered for the relay event. Running in teams of five they’ll follow the same course at the individual runners but will set off half an hour later. And around 400 are expected to take part in the 3 km town fun run.

This year’s event has attracted competitors from around the globe. Richard Ingle, chief executive officer at Standard Chartered in Jersey, commented: ‘It’s fantastic to see the marathon bringing runners from all over the world to Jersey, runners from Trinidad and Tobago, Malaysia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Switzerland, the UK and Channel Islands.’

For many runners it’ll be their first attempt at the classic distance, for others a familiar challenge. One of those is 57-year-old Trinidadian John Lum Young. Jersey will be the 25^th country in which he has run a marathon in the past 12 months. The financial accountant, who is a self-confessed marathon addict, has an ultimate goal of completing 100 marathons in 50 countries before the age of 60.

‘I came to running later in life, and didn’t become serious about it until four months short of my 45^th birthday’, said Mr Lum Young. ‘There are times when races are painful and there are times when I think, “I’m getting too old for this.” But the camaraderie among runners is excellent. Also running keeps the weight off.’

The marathon is also a fund raising event. Since 2003 Standard Chartered’s chosen charity has been Seeing is Believing (SiB) an initiative to tackle avoidable blindness. Money from this year’s race will go towards a three-year project in Zambia to provide eye care services in underserved districts in Muchinga Province and Eastern Province. Cancer charity Macmillan Jersey will also benefit from the event.