Standard Chartered Half-Marathon Brunei 2013- A Runaway Success
Bandar Seri Begawan, 7 April 2013 – The much anticipated Standard Chartered Half-Marathon Brunei 2013 was featured on Sunday, 7 April at the Hassanal Bolkiah National Stadium. A total of over 6000 participants took part in the event with over 1000 volunteers, medics, police and officials to support it.
Guest of Honour of the event was Yang Berhormat Pehin Orang Kaya Pekerma Laila Diraja Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Hazair bin Haji Abdullah, Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports who was delighted to flag off all the Half-Marathon, 10km and 5km categories; participate in the 2.5km category; tour and participate in the activities during the event and present prizes to winners of the Half-Marathon category.
Her Royal Highness Princess Sarah, Crown Princess of Brunei Darussalam, His Royal Highness Prince ‘Abdul Wakeel, Her Royal Highness Princess Rashidah, Her Royal Highness Princess Majeedah, Her Royal Highness Princess Ameerah and other members of Brunei’s Royal family as well as Yang Mulia Datin Paduka Hajah Adina, Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, Permanent Secretaries at the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports; Energy Division, Prime Minister’s Office and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the President of the Brunei Athletics Association also signed up to participate at the event.
The Standard Chartered Half-Marathon Brunei 2013 featured 4 categories- 21km, 10km, 5km and 2.5km. The 21km category was further split into an Open, Brunei and Veteran category. Asides from runners from Brunei, there were also a total of 231 overseas runners who flew in especially for this event from 11 other countries, namely, Australia, Austria, Indonesia, Kenya, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and the United Kingdom
The day started at 5:15am with a special warm-up session by GetFit CrossFit for the 21km runners who were then flagged off by the Guest of Honour Yang Berhormat Pehin Orang Kaya Pekerma Laila Diraja Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Hazair bin Haji Abdullah, Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports together with Yang Mulia Dato Paduka Haji Abdul Rahman Haji Mohiddin, President of the Brunei Athletics Association and Lai Pei-Si, CEO of Standard Chartered Bank at 5:30am.
Following this, another warm-up session by GetFit CrossFit was featured for runners of all other categories. Guest of Honour Yang Berhormat Pehin Orang Kaya Pekerma Laila Diraja Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Hazair bin Haji Abdullah, Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports was delighted to join in the session alongside the other runners.
Subsequently, runners from all other categories were flagged off with 10km runners at 6:00am, 5km runners at 6:15am and 2.5km runners at 6:30am. Following the flag off, all runners were then drummed off by a Hadrah Band courtesy of Brunei Tourism. Along the route, the runners were also cheered on by participants of the Cheering Competition held in conjunction with the event.
Lai Pei-Si, CEO of Standard Chartered Bank said in her speech:
“Marathon runners share similar characterises to the values that Standard Chartered believes in, and lives by every day – a ‘can-do’ attitude, a priority on strength of trust, willpower, stamina, and a determination to go the distance, no matter what. This is one of the reasons why Standard Chartered sponsors nine marathons and four smaller races around the world.”
“Some people run in costume, some for charity, others do it to push themselves to their physical and mental limits. Whatever the reason, all of you came out to run and have contributed positively to what makes our event unique. At Standard Chartered Bank, our reason to run is to be able to do good through it. Through today’s run, together with all of you, we have the opportunity to give back to autism through Learning Ladders and SMARTER and the visually impaired through our Seeing is Believing Programme,” she added.
The running event, the largest organised by Standard Chartered Bank so far, involved lots of logistic arrangements. A total of 11 water stations were featured along all routes as well as the Start and Finish line with Isotonic stations along the 10km and 21km routes only. 8813 litres of water, 1940 litres of isotonic and 1100kg of ice was used and consumed on the day .In addition, for the 21km runners to refuel, a total of 1200 bananas were distributed along the Half-Marathon route.
All of the proceeds raised for the Run will benefit Learning Ladders, SMARTER and Standard Chartered Bank’s Seeing Is Believing Programme. A special prize of an Apple iPad Mini 16GB Wi-Fi will be presented to the top donation collector for the event. The cheque presentation will take place a few weeks after the event.
Standard Chartered Half-Marathon Brunei 2013 is proudly sponsored by Official Sponsor- Great Eastern Life alongside official partners- GetFit CrossFit, Mixmediaworx, New Balance, Radisson Hotel, Royal Brunei Airlines, Soleus, Suci, Sunlit Advertising, 100 Plus, Borneo Bulletin and Media Permata. This event is held in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports and sanctioned by the Brunei Athletics Association.
The event was also kindly supported by The Royal Brunei Police Force, The Traffic Control and Investigation Department; RIPAS, Medical Reception Service, Municipal Department, JKR, Kelab Maxiscooters Kuala Belait (KEMAS), Jerudong Park Medical Centre, Gleneagles JPMC, Humanitarian.Emergency.Aid.Response.Team (HEART), DST, Brunei Tourism, Ben Foods, ThreeG Media Sdn Bhd and VitaWorld, along with volunteers from the various schools, colleges, organisations- namely, Seinenmaru Events Management, Brunei Polytechnic, Sultan Saiful Rijal Technical College and Maktab Sains and members of the public who stepped forward to lend a hand
For results, please head over www.scbruneihalfmarathon.com
Source: Standard Chartered Brunei Marathon
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