Canberra Marathon Wins International Award
From CoolRunning Australia
11 April 2007
Back to Canberra Marathon
The Canberra Marathon has won a prestige international award for its Kids Marathon program. At the 16th World Congress of AIMS (the Association of International Marathons and Distance Races) in Xiamen, China at the end of March, the Canberra Marathon was announced as the inaugural winner of the “AIMS ChampionChip Innovation Award”.
This award, sponsored by the world’s leading event timing company ChampionChip, was open to any of the 238 member races of AIMS from over 80 countries. Race organisers Fran Seton and Dave Cundy were in Xiamen to accept the award.
The Kids Marathon is a program where school age children complete the 42.195km marathon distance over a number of weeks. A basic program is to run 1km each day from Monday to Friday for eight weeks. This can be done in the child’s own time or as part of a school or sporting club program.
By race weekend children will have completed 40km towards their “marathon”. On Sunday, the children complete the final 2.195km and cross the marathon finish line, where they receive a finishers’ medal, just like the adult runners who finish their marathon soon after the children. Canberra won the award for some innovative approaches to this event, including working closely with the event charity, the Children’s Cancer Institute Australia. All children who participate in the event are encouraged to raise sponsorship money to help those who are less fortunate. Part of the event promotion includes this banner: “Kids with cancer face challenges every day. Help then overcome these by challenging yourself.”
Over the past three years the event has raised over $38,000 for the CCIA and it is expected that this weekend’s event will add another $15,000 plus to this total.
This year the AIS, through its program AIS Connect, has assisted with event promotion by sending athletes to schools to encourage and motivate the children.
The Kids Marathon, which will be held this Sunday in conjunction with the 31st annual Canberra Marathon, has attracted a record number of entrants. The 310 children, which include 89 from interstate, is a 38 per cent increase on numbers in 2006.
St Judes, at Holder, and the Garran Primary School are two schools to embrace the concept, with over 25 per cent of the children enrolled at St Judes to run on Sunday.
The Canberra Marathon starts at 7.00 am and the Kids Marathon at 8.00 am with both races starting and finishing outside the Telopea Park School.
Dave Cundy
RACE DIRECTOR
11 April 2007
