Bhubaneswar, Nov. 29: Tata Steel, in association with Sports and Youth Services Department, Government of Odisha will be organizing Tata Steel Bhubaneswar Half Marathon – 2017 on January 8, 2017.
Commemorating The National Youth Sports Day, this annual professional half marathon is being organized for the second year in row.
Ananta Kishore Jena, Director-cum-Additional Secretary of Sports and Youth Services department, along with Sunil Bhaskaran, Vice President, Corporate Services, Tata Steel, Arun Misra, Vice President, Project Gopalpur and MD, Tata Steel Special Economic Zone, announced the marathon while addressing a press conference here. The official website enabling online registration and the official T-Shirt was also unveiled on this occasion.
Complimenting Tata Steel for the initiative, Jena expressed hope that the upcoming Half Marathon should evoke even better interest amongst sports enthusiasts than last year.
Speaking on the occasion, Bhaskaran said that Tata Steel has been striving to make the Tata Steel Bhubaneswar Half Marathon one of the important running events of the country.
Towards achieving this, all necessary steps are being taken including some of the contemporary technologies to conduct the marathon.
Arun Misra said that the company is known for its commitment for all round development of society and sports has always remained a focus area. Tata Steel intends to bring such international level sports experience to the people of Odisha and to motivate them to explore professional sports as a career.
Tata Steel Bhubaneswar Half Marathon will cover a distance of 21.1 km. Starting from Kalinga stadium, the run will go towards Khandagiri Square and return to end at Kalinga Stadium. Apart from the 21.1 kms Half Marathon, 10 Kms run for Institutions, Colleges and Corporate houses and 5 Kms run for School students (upto 12th standard) will be organized. The reporting time for all races will be 5:30 am.
State-of-the-art technology consisting of Timing Mats and its control units, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips, split timing mats on route, tracking camera, wi-fi network on route as per international standard will be used to ensure a world standard conduct of the marathon.
Awards worth Rs 9,14,000 (excluding applicable taxes) will be given to winners in different categories. There will be awards in three different categories with the highest prize money of Rs 1,00,000 going to each of the winners (men and women category) of the 21.1kms run.