Sande Bashaija
12 October 2008
Kampala — National record holder Alex Malinga will once again miss out on the MTN Kampala International Marathon due November 23.
Malinga, Uganda's best runner over the 42.195km distance has been included on the team for the Greatest Race on Earth (GROE) marathon series getting underway on October 26 in Nairobi.
The GROE is a four-legged marathon relay across four cities of Nairobi, Singapore, Mumbai and Hong Kong. Malinga will be representing Uganda in the second leg due December 7 in Singapore, automatically ruling him out of the MTN event.
"It's unfortunate Ugandans haven't had a chance of watching me compete in the MTN Marathon. It usually comes at the same time with GROE and the national team needs me badly," Malinga told Daily Monitor as Standard Chartered Bank announced a Shs20m package for Team Uganda early this week.
Since doors were opened up for international runners in 2005, no Ugandan has taken gold in the marathon and Malinga would be the ideal runner to deal with the strong Kenyan opposition.
Joseph Nsubuga, who won the all-Ugandan inaugural marathon MTN in 2004, has also pulled out of this year's edition heaping the entire burden on Francis Yiga to try and keep the gold home.
Registration for the marathon is ongoing at all MTN centres countrywide and Silk Events branches. All proceeds from the one-day event go towards resettling internally displaced people back to their homes.
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