January 24th, 2019

Dubai Pulls Together For City’s Marathon Effort

The eyes of the athletics world will be on Dubai tomorrow when the 2019 Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon is staged in the heart of Jumeirah.

Helping the event run smoothly over the normally busy streets of the city will be hundreds of officials from many departments of the Government of Dubai, including an army of police personnel, RTA staff, Dubai Municipality teams and ambulance and health crews who will help handle an event that covers over 42km of the streets of the UAE.

Held under the patronage of HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, and under the aegis of the Dubai Sports Council, the 20th edition of the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon is just one of many world-class sporting events staged in the city but is the one with the largest “playing field” that takes in streets and roads through the heart of the popular Jumeirah district.

During the early hours of Friday, the Jumeirah and Al Sufouh areas will see a number of road closures, however in line with the requirements of Dubai Police and the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority, the marathon is required to have the roads open to traffic as soon as possible following the event, which means a cut off time of six hours to achieve this target.

The elite Marathon runners will take to the course at 6am followed by the masses at 7am and those in the masses event who fall behind the six hour pace will be asked to complete the course on the footpaths for their own safety.

Meanwhile, the elites used their last day of training to take in some of the sights with many athletes, including Guye Adola – the fastest ever Marathon debutant – pounding the streets alongside the famous Dubai Canal.