The Sunday morning rush
Seventeen thousand and five hundred participated in the six-km Dream Run, reports Akshay Sawai.
As the fleet of marathoners moved towards Prabha Kunj on Peddar Road on Sunday morning, singer Usha Mangeshkar cast a somewhat dispassionate glance at the street from the family’s apartment. Then she closed the door.
Had she stayed on, she could have absorbed the symphony Kenya’s John Kelai and Yang Zhiao Shu of China were creating with their feet on the concrete.
But Kelai and Yang were serious athletes, who emerged champions in the men’s and women’s race, respectively. The beauty of Sunday morning lay in the fact that almost 30,000 others, most of them recreational runners, also embraced the event.
Seventeen thousand and five hundred participated in the six-km Dream Run. Among them were commoners and those air-brushed by fame, those dressed as themselves and others as Gandhi. It was not just for the young and physically unchallenged. Two-and-a-half thousand bravehearts ran the Senior Citizen’s race while 300 entered the wheelchair event. The half-marathon attracted 7,089 participants, including Anil Ambani, while the full marathon saw almost 1,850 entries.
Not everything was peaches and cream. Indian marathoner Satyabhama used the post-race press conference as a platform to vent her bitterness towards colleague Leelamma and her bosses at the Railways.
On the positive side, there were some good performances for India. Madhuri Gurnule and Deep Chand won the women’s and men’s half-marathon. Ram Singh Yadav completed the full marathon in 2 hours, 20 minutes and 34 seconds, the best time achieved by an Indian in this event.
Email Akshay Sawai: akshay.sawai@hindustantimes.com