No fewer than 150,000 local and international athletes are expected to participate in the 4th edition of Access Bank Lagos City Marathon, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode said on Monday.
Addressing a press conference at Lagos House in Alausa, Ikeja to officially announce commencement of preparations for the marathon which is billed to hold on February 2, 2019, Governor Ambode said the target is to use the forthcoming edition to take the tournament from the bronze label of International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) to silver.
According to him, “The whole idea is to turn the competition from bronze to silver level. In the last three editions, we had between 100,000 and 120,000 participants. This time around, we want to make sure that come February 2019, we would have not less than 150,000 participants.
“The reason why we want to take it to that level is to create a new record and create a new platform to allow the 2019 edition to herald what is going to happen in the next six years. We believe strongly that in another six years when we are marking the 10th anniversary, we should actually become a top class marathon, and that is our vision for this competition.
“We believe that it is achievable. This is not necessarily about me; it is not even about the sponsors but about making Lagos be on that top brand across the world and that is how cities are elevated to become a global brand,” Governor Ambode said.
He said arrangement had equally been firmed up to encourage more local participation, as well as more physically-challenged athletes, a development he said necessitated the increase in prize monies for the two categories.
“We think obviously that we should pay more attention to our physically-challenged athletes this time around and also to embrace more of local participation. This time around, we would push more money to the local races and we would push more money to also our physically-challenged athletes to encourage more people to come in, while the main prize remain the same,” he said.
The governor commended the sponsors, media and all those who have contributed to the success of the marathon in the last three years, saying the development was a dream come true.
Earlier in his welcome address, Chairman of Lagos State Sports Commission, Dr. Kweku Tandoh, said the Lagos City Marathon was the third of its kind after Brighton and Bournemouth Marathon in the United Kingdom to earn the prestigious IAAF Bronze Label only after its second edition, which held on February 10, 2018.
In his brief remarks, President of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), Engr. Ibrahim Gusau commended Governor Ambode for setting the pace for others to follow for others to follow in sports development, saying that the 2018 edition of the Lagos Marathon was highly rated amongst top competitions on the international calendar.
