October 26th, 2017

Registration Well Underway For Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon

Runners of all ages, abilities and nationalities are already signing up for the 2018 Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon – the Middle East’s biggest mass participation sporting event – as they prepare for a place on the start line of the Marathon, the 10km and the 4km Fun Run on Friday, January 26.

Registration for the event, held under the patronage of HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, and staged under the aegis of the Dubai Sports Council, is done through the event’s website – www.dubaimarathon.org – and the three runs are already filling up with competitors from home and abroad.

“We are delighted with the response to the opening of registration,” said Event Director Peter Connerton. “As soon as the 2017 race was over, we had people from all over the world asking when they could sign up for the next one. It’s very encouraging and motivates us to make the race even better.”

Among the more than 30,000 runners that will line up across the three events will be groups of runners representing many companies and government bodies. It’s a category actively encouraged by the event organisers.

“Group entries are wonderful for team building and boosting company morale, while at the same time contributing to the health, fitness and wellbeing of people of all backgrounds and nationalities,” added Connerton. “We’ve always welcomed teams and groups of runners and have even created a special entry process for them as a well as classification in the Corporate category.”

Since the Dubai Marathon launched group entries, the biggest participant in terms of runner numbers has been Dubai Holding, which has again thrown its support behind the event.

“Our commitment to enhancing the lifestyle of Dubai’s society marks its first decade this year,” said Dubai Holding Chief Executive Officer Edris Al Rafi.

“We started the region’s first corporate wellness programme in 2007 and the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon was among the first fitness initiatives we supported. We are proud of this long-standing relationship and more so of the tangible impact it has had on promoting fitness activity and physical wellbeing within our staff and society at large.”

He added: “We are particularly honoured to be the sponsor of the UAE National Fastest Runner category, for both male and female athletes. We continue to see increased participation from our own group, who formed 3,369 participants in 2017, up by a remarkable thirteen per cent from the previous year. For 2018, we are looking forward to supporting an even bigger number of our staff and their families to take on this exciting challenge.”

As well as tens of thousands of everyday runners and part-time athletes who make up the majority of the fields, the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon will again feature the elite athletes whose very presence and world-class finishing times have helped establish the race as one of the best in athletics.

Following Tamirat Tola’s new course record win in January this year, the average of the top ten times in the history of the Dubai Marathon is 2h:04m:36s making it the third fastest in Marathon history behind only Berlin and London, while it is the second fastest Marathon in the world based on the average of the top ten results since 2010. In the women’s race, the Dubai Marathon is the only Marathon in history to have three runners break a time of 2h:20m in the same race (2012).

“The 2018 race will be the 14th successive year of the Bank being title sponsors of this mega event,” said Standard Chartered Bank CEO UAE Julian Wynter. “We are very excited as the event’s popularity has grown substantially over these years. It’s an incredible partnership that we look forward to developing year after year. It is closely aligned to our efforts in promoting healthy living among our staff and the community at large.”

In addition to Standard Chartered as title sponsor, the Dubai Marathon is supported by the Dubai Sports Council, adidas, Dubai Eye 103.8FM, Sport 360, Masafi Natural Water, Dubai Holding, Dubai Police and the RTA.