25,500 runners expected for Jakarta 10K

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The race organizer for the Jakarta International 10K has met its goal of surpassing last year's figure of 23,000 participants.

"The number of runners for the race has reached over 25,000," Taufik Yudi Mulyanto, the head of the Jakarta youth and sports affairs agency (Disorda), who is organizing the race, said after a press conference on Thursday.

Event organizer Kendilima showed data from Disorda that 25,500 runners were registered for Sunday.

The organizer also confirmed that the Rp 600 million (US$66,000) race would have a total of 32 international runners in the field. They include athletes from Kenya, Tanzania, Australia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

A total of 19 national runners, many of them preparing for the Southeast Asian Games later this year, will also compete on Sunday.

The race will start at 6:30 a.m., with a route from the National Monument in the center of the city, leading along the main streets of Jl. Thamrin and Sudirman to the Semanggi cloverleaf, and back to the monument.

The winners in the international men's and women's categories will receive US$11,000 respectively, while national winners in men's and women's division will take home prize money of Rp 15 million each.

Although a bonus was available in the past for a world record, it will not be on offer this year.

"We will not give such an incentive for a world record breaker, but probably next year," Taufik said.

At the same event, the chief of the Athletics Association of Indonesia, Mohamad "Bob" Hasan, awarded a certificate from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to the city for its organization of the race.

"The Jakarta 10K (organizing committee) has fulfilled a number of requirements set by the IAAF, such as good measurement of the distance and the arrangement of doping tests after the race. Therefore, the IAAF awards the certificate to the race," Hasan said.

Business tycoon and former minister Hasan was instrumental in setting up the first international 10K race in Bali in 1987.