Kenya tops Greatest Race contest

  1. Posted on Monday 9 February 2009 - 13:22
    mugira
    Image of mugira
    Mugira, AfricaNews reporter in Kampala, Uganda
    Kenya emerged first in the Africa category of The Greatest Race on Earth 2008/09 (GROE) followed by Uganda and Zambia as first and second runner-ups respectively. Uganda's Joseph Nsubuga finished seventh overall in Sunday's Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon.
    GROE finalists
    Kenya’s Cyprian Kiogara Mwobi and Winnie Nyansikera won the Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon. The wins secured victory for the Kenyan men’s and women’s teams and took home USD 80,000 for each team. Mwobi completed the course in a blistering time of 21:14:57 to set a new GROE series record of 08:59:49, an amazing 00:09:27 quicker than the previous record. Nyansikera also set an impressive time, crossing the line in just 02:41:25 for her first ever marathon win.

    The Uganda team, which won USD 50,000 for coming second, finished with a cumulative time of 09:25:15 which was 00:25:27 behind group winners Kenya, while Zambia finished in third place.

    While congratulating the team, the Standard Chartered Uganda Head of Corporate Affairs, Herbert Zake said: “This is a great achievement for the Uganda team. We wish to congratulate them for their best performance in this race. We wish to thank them for their endurance and determination. The team deserves the USD 50,000 prize. This is an inspiration to other athletes all over Uganda to emulate the set example”.

    GROE is the leading international marathon relay series for national teams of four countries - Kenya, Singapore, Mumbai and Hong Kong. Moses Cherop set the team on its way in the opening leg in Nairobi where he finished second in GROE, a feat matched by Alex Malinga at the second leg in Singapore, before Amos Masai took over the baton in Mumbai.

    Now in its fifth series GROE offers a USD 1 million prize pool with USD 80,000 for the first place team in each category, USD 50,000 f or the second team and USD 30,000 f or the third placed team. Reflecting the race’s international appeal, the competing countries are split into the three regional categories of Africa, South and Southeast Asia and North East Asia and Rest of The World (ROTW).

    For the first time, GROE is partnering with Seeing is Believing (SiB), the global initiative which tackles avoidable blindness, and through the participation of 78 Standard Chartered staff teams and a Visually Impaired All-Stars team, the Bank is helping raise funds and awareness for SiB.

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