Calicut Mini Marathon-2016: Kenyan siblings win over Kozhikode

Kozhikode: Siblings Antony Mugo and Paulino Muchiri came all the way from Kenya to participate in the ‘Calicut Mini Marathon-2016’ on Sunday along with hundreds from around the country, and they will be back home with a cash award and lots of memories.

Both professional athletes, visiting the country for the first time, secured second position each in male and female category respectively beating 4,000-odd participants.

In the male category, unlike previous years, an Indian, Pravesh P., bagged the first prize of Rs 50,000 and Gladys Tarus from Kenya stood first in the female category.

This is the sixth edition of the marathon and Kenyan runners were walking away with first prizes in the previous years.  “The marathon is so familiar to youngsters in our country, and many of our friends had been to the city last years to participate,” said Mr Mugo.

“We registered online and were confident that we will win. We were trained to run on our land, and it was indeed an experience to run with so many people here in an entirely differently background. I’ll be back here with my sister every year.”

The event that started with a 10-km race was flagged off by Prof Joffi Thomas, IIM Kozhikode, Prof Deepak Dayanithy, Calicut Marathon faculty mentor and Kozhikode district collector Prasanth Nair. IIMK director Prof Kulbhushan Balooni and officials of State Bank of India also ran for three kilometres.