UAF organising secretary Faustino Kiwa unveiling the route map for this year’s MTN marathon yesterday
By Norman Katende
ORGANISERS of the MTN Kampala marathon will spend sh150m more to cater for an increased entry list in the ever-growing annual event.
Sponsors MTN will spend sh850m this year on the race that will have a new start point. Organisers expect to register 15,000 participants, up from 11,000 last year.
Registration of the event to start and finish at Kololo airstrip runs October 12-26, with MTN Mobile Money subscribers paying sh5,000 and others sh6,000.
“Our vision is to make it the best and most organised event in Africa and that is why we are coming up with so many changes,” said he telecommunications company chief marketing officer Isaac Nsereko at the marathon launch yesterday.
“It is through this that we have changed the slogan to “Run for [it]” instead of “Run for Life” used last year to suit the different categories of participants.”
“We expect different types of people to participate in this year’s marathon. They all have different reasons. Some run for fan, for health reasons while others do it for charity,” added Nsereko.
“Whilst we are happy to have raised over sh189m for charity i in the past six years, we hope to raise even more this year and help more mothers to resettle and improve on their quality of life in northern Uganda.”
Uganda Red Cross general secretary Michael Nataka said that the proceedings from the last five marathons have supported 1,000 families.
Uganda Athletics Federation organising secretary Faustin Kiwa confirmed that all the routes have been drawn with the support of the police.
“We had to discuss the routes extensively with the police before they were finalised,” said Kiwa.
