Standard Chartered KL Marathon In The News..

Marathon: Organisers promise smoother event
2010/03/17
Devinder Singh
devinder@nst.com.my

THE Standard Chartered KL Marathon organisers have vowed to deliver a smoother event on June 27 while targeting 18,000 runners this year.

Last year's race, the first run under the Standard Chartered banner, descended into chaos with problems plaguing the event from start to finish.

Water points lacked water, runners were led astray, inadequate route markers and timing malfunctions were just some of the weaknesses observed last year.

Even the organisers could not be sure who won the local category for men with the wrong winner initially declared.

Datuk Seri Ibrahim Saad, representing organisers Golazo, assured that lessons have been learnt and will be taken on board in the handling of this year's event.

"Based on last year's experiences, there will be many changes in the organisation structure, in the route and in the co-operation between the various bodies.

"DBKL (Kuala Lumpur City Hall) will be a more active participant this time and I'm sure this would make this year's race better," said Ibrahim during the official launch of the marathon in Kuala Lumpur on Monday.

Golazo, a Belgian-based sports event promoter, takes over the running of the KL Marathon from Octagon Asia, which has closed its Malaysian office.

"Octagon has shut down its event management section but the same people from Octagon have set up Golazo's Malaysian office to run the marathon," said Ibrahim.

City Hall Director of Culture, Arts, Tourism and Sports Muhammad Sidek Khalid said last year's shortcomings will be discussed at length when the working committee meets.

"We will hold a meeting as soon as possible to look into the setbacks in the last marathon. We will look into ways in avoiding long queues when collecting bibs, among other things," he said.
                                                                          & NST, 17 March 2010

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Comment : Aiyo...still the same people organising. Hopefully no repeats from last year!