Standard Chartered Marathon cancelled for the first time in 17 years

Standard Chartered Marathon cancelled for the first time in 17 years

The Standard Chartered Marathon earlier set for October 25 has been cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns.

This is the first time the annual competition will not be held in its 17-year history.

““Our consultations with Athletics Kenya and the Ministry of Sports clearly indicated that we would not be able to plan for a physical event with any certainty. We then considered a virtual marathon event and consulted other stakeholders, amongst them, running clubs, coaches and past corporate running teams.

“After benchmarking with local and international virtual races our conclusion was that this format promoted improved safety but for it to be successful it still required the majority of participants to leave their homes in order to cover the race distances; a move that could compromiseCOVID-19 preventive measure protocols,” said Peter Gitau, Chairman of the Standard Chartered Nairobi Marathon Local Organising Committee.

Last year, the Standard Chartered Marathon in Nairobi attracted over 17,000 participants and raised over Ksh. 30million towards FutureMakers.

FutureMakers is a community investment program which provides youth in need with education, employment and entrepreneurship opportunities.

Mr. Gitau also noted that in 2019, the fundraising efforts supported over 4,400 girls with life skills and economic opportunity training and the bank also invested Ksh. 15 million to support women-led start-ups.

Additionally, more than 650 youth and SMEs received financial literacy training.

He added that investment and support to the youth continues this year and despite COVID-19, Standard Chartered Bank is providing more than 3,500 girls and young women with education and empowerment opportunities.

“We are investing Kshs 15 million to training and grow SME women-led businesses, and we will train and support over 3,700 young men and women with employment skills, including ably different youth with visual impairments, among others.

“We are also committed to helping our communities tackle COVID-19 and we have already donated over Ksh. 120 million to support vulnerable children, as well as provision of primary and secondary health care for COVID-19 emergency response. We will continue to help communities recover and rebuild from the pandemic and its impacts,” he said.

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