Why we disqualified 5,000 runners from Lagos City Marathon – Official

[FILES] Lagos City Marathon

Yusuf Alli, the Technical Director of Access Bank Lagos City Marathon, says no fewer than 5,000 runners who failed to pick up their kits on time were disqualified.

Alli disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday in Lagos.

Alli noted that the last minutes rush by the intending runners after the expiration of the deadline for picking the kits would affect getting the accurate record of runners.

According to him, it is important that those who register for the marathon are timely in their online registration and in picking their kits for the race, to keep to the World Road Race’s standards.

“There were fewer runners in this year’s edition because many runners came late for the collection of their kits and we have to turn down about 5,000 that came on Thursday.

“People waited till the last minute and if we keep giving out kits until the last minutes, we won’t have accurate number of runners – which is our start sheet.

“People should abide by the deadline given; it’s not that we don’t want them, but we want to keep to the rules of the game which is good for us.

“I believe the numbers will increase because there was a time we had over 120,000 runners in the marathon but when COVID-19 came, it disrupted the figures, but we are picking up gradually,” he said.

Alli also pointed out that the 42 km Gold Label race had witnessed significant improvement from when it started nine years ago.

“When we started the marathon, the time difference between the elite runners and Nigerians was 24 minutes, but today, it’s just 10 minutes, that means we are picking up.

“The world record in 1990 was 2:07 and Nigerian record stood at 2:15 years after. For some years, we went to sleep and didn’t