-- China's Lu Lu Li Competes in the Nairobi Marathon -- The Opening Leg of the Greatest Race on Earth Series 2008/09
NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct. 13 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- On Sunday 26th October the world's leading marathon relay series The Greatest Race on Earth (GROE) 2008/09 gets under way with the Nairobi Marathon.
Last year's Nairobi Greatest Race on Earth category winner, China's Lu Lu Li, will be hoping to better her overall second place this year. In the Greatest Race on Earth category she crossed the finishing line first.
The 19 year-old's time of 2 hours 47 minutes 37 seconds was the perfect start to The Greatest Race on Earth for the Chinese women's team. At the end of the series, the team went on to finish third overall behind the Kenyan 'A' and 'B' teams.
Also running for China will be Xiaoyan Guo who will race in Singapore, Xin Zhang who will run in Mumbai and Fengxia Yang who will run the final leg in Hong Kong.
For the first time in the GROE, China will also be represented by a men's team in the Nation's Challenge. The male team consists of Shouquan Wang (Nairobi), Teng Ma (Singapore), Shuai Yuan (Mumbai) and Meng Li (Hong Kong).
GROE is sponsored by Standard Chartered Bank and with USD 1 million, it has one of the richest prize funds in world athletics.
Starting in Nairobi, The Greatest Race on Earth series moves on to Singapore on 7th December, before going to Mumbai on 18th January and finishing in Hong Kong on 8th February.
This year's Greatest Race on Earth series will see 23 men's teams and 12 women's teams from 25 different countries around the world competing in the elite Nation's Challenges. The four team members will run in one marathon each with the winning team being the one with the quickest cumulative time.
Also taking part in the series will be a Visually Impaired All-Stars team, including recent Paralympic marathon gold medallist Qi Shun, who will run to raise awareness and funds for Seeing is Believing.
Footage from the Nairobi marathon, including interviews with the Chinese athletes will be broadcasted copyright free via the APTN Global Video Wire at the following times:
Sunday 26th October 2008
1215-1230 GMT
REPLAY
Monday 27th October 2008
0115-0130 GMT
Broadcast quality footage is also available for download from the multimedia gallery of the following website:
http://www.thegreatestraceonearth.com
