Elite Athletes Storm Lagos For 10th Access Bank Marathon

All is now 10th Access Bank Lagos City Marathon scheduled for Saturday, February 15, following the arrival of international athletes for the event.

About 4,000 foreign runners are expected to take part in this year’s race, which marks a decade of the Lagos City Marathon.

General manager of the Race, Olympian Yusuf Ali, said yesterday during a symposium for accredited journalists at the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Lagos that the Gold Label category race is closer to achieving its Platinum Label category after the 10th anniversary.

Ali said that the indices of achieving the much coveted Platinum Label had been fulfilled by the Access Bank Lagos City marathon, adding that it is working hard to be the first in Africa to achieve the Platinum.

“Right now, we have good numbers of elite runners participating this year. We have seven gold medal runners in male category, two in Platinum, five gold labels for females and one in Platinum.

“Right now, the World Athletics (WA) have changed the ranking modalities and the runners must be among the top 300.

“We have ticked all the boxes needed for qualification for the Platinum label. We are changing the status quo this year. Achieving the Platinum label category will be the first of such in Africa among other countries staging marathons. For this 10th anniversary, we have the elite athletes that can give us the Platinum Medal and also have our cross record which is 2hours:10minutes.

“The timing by the athletes is right for us, which will put us in good standing for the Platinum label’’ Alli said.

Ali, a former Director General of Edo State Sports Commission (ESSC), also disclosed that some issues that arose from the last marathon had been fully addressed to put the race on good footing.

“Last year, the issue of water came up which we have also addressed. The organisers have added other incentives to make the 10th anniversary more memorable which include the appointment of pacers.

“In the area, we have a very big plan of having three pacers for the men category and one for the women category. The three pacer can also finish the race.
“We will be having a meeting with the athletes to discuss the issues about the pacers that they can also finish. One pacer will drop at 30km, the second pacer at 35km and the last at 40km.

“If the pacers have the strength, they can also finish which also means that a pacer can also win the race. For the elite, we have over 100 runners as of today. We have more runners in the 10km than in the 42km,’’ Ali said