By IANS,
Bangalore : More than 24,000 people are expected to participate in eight events on race day when the TCS World 10K Bangalore 2013 is flagged off from the Sree Kanteerava Stadium here May 19.
A strategic tie-up with one of the world’s leading elite athlete management agencies, to encourage the serious runners from the corporate world, colleges and universities, course record bonuses and many novel initiatives to enhance the running experience of every participant will herald the event.
These initiatives were announced by N. Ganapathy Subramaniam, executive vice-president of Emerging Businesses along with event partners at a press conference here Monday with Kannada movie star Puneet Rajkumar.
N. Chandrasekaran, CEO of TCS, said: “It is great to see that the TCS World 10K Bangalore continues to grow in popularity and stature as the city’s premier athletic event. With citizens embracing this event as their own we hope to see more people participating in the third edition of the race to spread the message about healthy living and wellness.”
With Procam International enlisting the services of Global Sports Communication (GSC) as the new elite athlete co-ordinators, the focus will also be on lowering the existing course records.
An incentive bonus of $7,500 is on offer for new course records. The Indian athletes too have an incentive bonus of Rs.1 lakh if they lower the existing Indian course records.
The overall men’s course record stands at 27.51 minutes set by Eritrean Zersenay Tadesse in 2008 while the women’s course record of 31:58 was set by Ethiopian Yimer Wude in 2010. The Indian men’s course record is 29:59 by Kashinath Asawale in 2008 while for Indian women it is 34:32 by Kavita Raut in 2009.
The Open 10K Challenge will comprise the DHL Corporate Challenge and the Nike College Faceoff, open to corporate teams and colleges/universities of Bangalore, respectively.
The winning team of the DHL Corporate Challenge will take home Rs.1 Lakh with the runner-up Rs.75,000. The next three finishers will stand to gain Rs.50,000, Rs.36,000 and Rs.30,000, respectively.
The three-member team will need to have two men and a woman with each member needing to complete the full distance of 10 km. The average of the net finish timings of all three runners will decide the finish positions.
The Nike College Face Off will give students an international platform to perform and run in the footsteps of some of the world’s leading male and female athletes and India’s best for financial gratification, besides pride and glory. The top three finishers among the boys and girls teams stand to win Rs.50,000, Rs.30,000 and Rs.20,000, respectively.
The charity drive associated with the TCS World 10K Bangalore, spearheaded by Bangalore Cares, the charity partner of the event, is poised for a quantum leap this year. The amounts raised for charity through the World’s Premier 10K Run had increased from Rs.41.35 lakh in the first year to Rs.1.31 crore in the second, Rs.1.41 crore in 2010 and Rs.1.85 crore in 2011. The last edition saw Rs.3.06 crore being raised.