LAHORE, Dec 22: Around 150 athletes, including 50 world renowned runners will take part in the second Lahore Marathon to be held on Jan 29 next. Like the first edition, the second will also have competitions in three different categories — the 42-km marathon, the 10-km road race and 5-km fun race.

The event has been made a fund-raiser for the rehabilitation of Oct 8 earthquake survivors, with a slogan ‘Run Lahore Run to Raise Funds’.

Ian Ladbrooke has been retained as race director who will be assisted by Rupinder Singh and Nathan Clayton as assistant director and race referee, respectively.

Mr Ladbrooke told a news conference on Thursday there would be nearly 26,000 runners taking part in all the three events. That include 1,000 in marathon, 5,000 in the 10km and about 20,000 in the 5km fun run.

He said the routes had been changed slightly. The five-kilometre race would start from Liberty roundabout at Main Boulevard to McDonald’s roundabout and back to the starting point. Last year the race was a flopped show as due to a good number of participants, the organizers had failed to start it properly from the LCCA Ground.

There was no change in the route of 10-km race which would start from Qadhafi Stadium and finish at the same point after passing through Ferozepur Road-Lahore Canal-The Mall, he added.

The main feature, the 42-km Marathon, would start from inside the Punjab Stadium, instead of the Qadhafi Stadium. The runners would take one and a half round of the track of the stadium before adopting the route — Ferozepur Road-Mozang Chungi-Chauburji-Data Darbar-Azadi Chowk-Lahore Fort and back to the starting point via Azadi Chowk-Data Darbar-Government College University-The Mall-Lahore Canal-Ferozepur Road-Kalma Chowk-Punjab Stadium.

It would carry a cash prize of $100,000 while there would be no cash award for the fun race.

The runners, who are coming from India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and South Africa, would be provided maximum security, one of the organizers Ghous Akbar said.

The Athletics Federation of Pakistan (AFP) will be the main partner of the organizers in providing technical assistance.