CHENNAI: Karunanidhi Memorial International Marathon 2023 on Sunday officially became the Asia’s largest marathon event and it has been approved as well as recorded in the Guinness World Record.
On the occasion of the centenary celebration of former chief minister and late DMK chief M Karunanidhi, the Karunanidhi memorial international marathon was organised by the ruling DMK.
A total of 73,206 people participated in the marathon, beating the previous record of participation from 39,000 people.
The certificate of the record was given to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister by Rishi Nath, Aggregator, Guinness World Record from London in the category of largest running race series.
This year Marathon registration fee collected RS 3,42,50,000, this amount will be given to the Royapetta Government Hospital for the construction of the advance cancer treatment building.
CM MK Stalin also gave prize money and awards to the winners of the Marathon, who ran in the 42km, 21km, 10km and 5km categories.
Stalin went on to address the participants after distributing the prizes and said, “Running in a Marathon develops not only physical strength but also mental strength as well, this type of program needs to be done across Tamil Nadu.”
“After Sports & Youth Development Minister Udayanidh become the Minister of the sports department, it is growing well for the welfare of the sports players. Tamil Nadu has become the state of International sports events, we have already done the Chess Olympiad event, and now we are doing the Asian Hockey Championship 2023 in Tamil Nadu. Even more sports events will be happening the process is going on. Even new Sports players are evolving and even current sports players are happy about the steps we are taking for the development of sports in the state,” Stalin added.
The event was flagged off by the TN Minister for Sports and young welfare Udhayanidhi Stalin. Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian, Dayanidhi Maran MP, Priya Rajan(Chennai mayor) and DMK MLAs participated in the program.
Tamil Nadu Dairy Minister Mano Thangaraj also participated in the Marathon. For the first time in Tamil Nadu, 1603 transgenders participated in a Marathon.
For the event, 17 dehydration points were placed to provide water bottles and energy drinks to the participants. Along with this 2,000 policemen have been deployed for protection. (ANI)