More than 22 schools with over 1,000 kids across the state participated in the race covering 1.2km, 3km and 5km distances respectively. Starting at the premises of St Saviour’s School, Ikoyi, the marathoners ran through Bourdillon Road and back to the starting line between 7am to 11am last Saturday.
Winners of the race were presented with cash prizes from MTN.
Gbenle Similoluwa won the first place in the 13-15 year old male category while Ibukun Agbede won the female category. They were awarded N100,000 each.
Other winners include; Sogbola Tomi and Amara Balogun in the 9-12yr category while Kechimani Iheanacho and Adefolaranmi Aliu won in the 5-8 years category
Speaking on the initiative, MTN’s Chief Marketing Officer, Rahul De, said that the need to encourage healthy lifestyle for kids early on necessitated the initiative.
“It is important to encourage children to imbibe an active lifestyle which includes physical exercise early on in life. When these habits are infused into their learning, it becomes part of them growing up thereby making them lead healthy lifestyles. As a lifestyle company, we’re in total support of such initiatives,” he said.
Chairman, Organising Committee of the initiative, Anahere Ezekiel, also underscored the importance of the marathon.
He said: “We want to get kids exercising. We think active kids stay healthy and are smart kids so we try to encourage kids to exercise. This will happen again next year. It started as a walkathon which metamorphosed into a marathon.”
Other activities at the event include an aerobics session and a health workshop for participants.
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