By Moni Mathews www.khaleejtimes.com
For the past many seasons, organisers of the Dubai Marathon have looked forward to a world record.
The 2014 Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon on Friday (today), with a new ‘dream course’ could turn out to be the sports event of the year.
The men’s world mark to be broken is 2:03:23 set by Kenya’s Wilson Kipsan at the 2013 Berlin Marathon while Britain’s Paula Ratcliffe’s 2003 London Marathon mark of 2:15:25 is still intact.
The men’s and women’s winners in Dubai have a take home offer of $200,000 each plus a world record bonus of $100,000.
Held under the patronage of Shaikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Sports Council, the Middle East’s biggest mass participation sporting event will see the Marathon get underway at 7am with the 10km Road Race starting at 7.15am and the 3km Fun Run at 11am.
The Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon is supported by the Dubai Sports Council, Adidas, Dubai Eye 103.8FM, Masafi, Dubai Holding, Dubai Police, the RTA and Dubai Municipality.
Awarded the Gold Label status from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) for the third consecutive year, the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon remains the world’s richest running race.
