"City of Destiny" Records Over 12000 Participants in Vizag-Navy Marathon

"City of Destiny" Records Over 12000 Participants in Vizag-Navy Marathon

The fourth edition of Vizag Navy Marathon, the largest running event in the “City of Destiny”, was conducted at the Beach Road on Sunday 12 November 17. This is also the major event organized as part of the ‘Swarna Varsha’ Celebrations of the Eastern Naval Command. On the pleasant Sunday morning, over 12,000 runners, geared up in style, participated in Full Marathon (42.2 Kms), Half Marathon (21.1 Kms), 10 Kms and 05 Kms races, starting from Vishwapriya Function Hall on the pristine Beach Road along the Bay of Bengal.

The event brought out a spontaneous response from all walks of life. Participants from all age groups, kids with parents, veterans, youth, Naval Personnel, foreigners and school children ran the race side by side, stride by stride. In addition to the participants, citizens of the City came out in large numbers to cheer the runners and enjoy the jubilation and celebration, since early hours of the day.

Around 300 runners participated in 42 Kms which was flagged off at 4:15 am by the Race Director Dr Murali while 2000 runners participated in 21 km race which was flagged off at 5:15 am by Cmde GR Pradhan Commanding Officer INS Kalinga. The 10 km run was flagged off at 06:15 am by Vice Adm Atul Kumar Jain, Chief of Staff ENC where over 3300 runners participated and 05 Kms run witnessed a record participation from 7000 runners was flagged off at 6:45 am by Vice Adm Karambir Singh Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief ENC. It was a proud moment for the parents who ran with their children, and school children who matched their strides with some of the eminent marathon runners.

The event completed incident-free due to effective traffic management from  Police department and host of facilities manned by volunteers who manned the hydration points, medical points and toilets throughout the route for runners, An event of this scale and proportion has definitely inscribed name of our ‘City of Destiny’ on the Marathon Map of this country with whole hearted support from District Administration,  City Police Authorities, GVMC, AP Tourism Department and a host of volunteers who came forward to ensure smooth and successful conduct of the event and to make it a memorable run for all the participants.

Vice Adm Karambir Singh AVSM, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, ENC, the Chief Guest for the prize distribution ceremony, gave away cash prizes to the winners on completion of the Marathon. The winners in various categories are given below.