UNICEF Borneo Marathon on April 28

KOTA KINABALU: The UNICEF Borneo Marathon will be happening here on April 28.

Entering its 12th edition, the event formerly known as Borneo International Marathon, is set to welcome around 10,000 runners.

Race director Datuk Dr Heng Aik Cheng said the theme for this year’s run was to promote overall healthy eating habits among children and adults in the country.

“The UNICEF Borneo Marathon calls upon all participants to run in solidarity to promote healthy eating practices and dietary habits among children and adolescents and encourage positive behavior change.

“The UNICEF Borneo Marathon is a charity event and a professional race for a good cause.

“We run together because we care about others (and) because we want to make an impact on children among us.

“This year, we put our running shoes on to say “Kurang Manis, because I’m sweet enough”,” Heng was quoted from a prepared press release.

Heng, who is also president of the Kinabalu Running Club that organised the Marathon, expressed hope that the around 10,000 runners would help spread the message so that it would have greater reach, especially on the children.

He said this when delivering his speech at the launching of the UNICEF Borneo Marathon, where it was also announced that the tagline for the run this year is ‘#KurangManis Because #ImSweetEnough’.

Sepanggar P171 Women Chief Raini Lekup, who represented Deputy Home Minister Datuk Azis Jamman, officially launched the UNICEF Borneo Marathon and among those present was CEO of ULTRON Malaysia Marc Chua.

Meanwhile, it was also announced that Malaysia’s sporting apparel brand ULTRON will be the official apparel of the UNICEF Borneo Marathon.

In fact, it will be the third year that ULTRON will be supporting the event and this year, it was made memorable for ULTRON opened its Sabah branch at the Oceanus Mall yesterday which was the sixth nationwide.

For the record, the UNICEF Marathon will feature the Full Marathon (42km) for Open, Veteran and Senior categories for male and female, Half Marathon (21km - Open and Veteran) and the 10km for Open and Student categories.

The races will start and finish at the Kota Kinabalu Sports Complex in Likas.

OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED: Raini (centre) is flanked by Dr Heng (third right) and Marc (third left) as well as other invited guest at the launch of the UNICEF Borneo Marathon 2019 here yesterday.