Wincentbert, Lavinia win in Borneo Half Marathon
KOTA KINABALU: Wincentbert Latius and Lavinia Kong justified their favourite tags to lift the men’s and women’s 21km Open titles in the 3rd Borneo Half Marathon here yesterday.
The wins followed their achievement in the Spirit of 85 – 5km Fun Run the previous Sunday where they were the fastest finishers in their respective category.
And they repeated the feat yet again at the Borneo Half Marathon where they crossed the finish line at Padang Merdeka as the fastest runners among all the 21km men and women participants.
Wincentbert clocked one-hour twenty-minute and thirty-one seconds (1:20.31s) to finish ahead of Wan Muhammad Irham (1:22.05s) and Liew Cheng Loong (1:24.05s) who settled for second and third in the men’s open.
As for Lavinia, she stopped the clock at 1:41.46s to top the women’s open category followed by national cyclist Natahsya Soon in 1:45.21s and Shamiera Auther in 1:52.39s.
Co-organised by Kota Kinabalu City Hall (DBKK) and Kinabalu Running Club, the Borneo Half Marathon featured the 21km and 11km races for men and women.
The categories involved are the Open, Junior Veteran, Veteran and Senior Veteran.
Around 2,100 runners took part in the Borneo Half Marathon which was flagged off by Mayor Datuk Seri Dr Sabin Samitah (11km) and KRC president Datuk Dr Heng Aik Cheng (21km).
Meanwhile, the Borneo Half Marathon was one of the many programmes or competitions held over the weekend to celebrate the 24th anniversary of Kota Kinabalu City.
One the of competitions was the third edition of the Street Soccer 3-on-3 Challenge that the newly appointed Mayor officiated at the DBKK parking areas on Saturday.
A total of 16 men and 16 women teams took part in the Challenge. YS Family emerged as champions in the men’s category followed by TPW FT while Minum Darah and Pak Supir settled for joint third placing.
In the women’s category, Old KK were the champions while the runners-up were JK FC and the joint third placed teams N’Force FC and Old KK Vemos.
DBKK director general Junainah Abbie presented the prizes to the winners in the street soccer challenge.