Lagos women run for comfort and prestige

Winner of the open category of the eighth Lagos Women Run will take home N1.5m, while the champion of the veterans category receives N500,000, organisers of the annual race, which holds Nov 11, have stated.

The star cash prizes are an improvement on what the open and veteran categories winners received last year — N1m and N350, 000 respectively.

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Coordinator of the race, Tayo Popoola, in a media briefing in Lagos on Thursday, thanked the Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu for his support in ensuring the women runners got better deals this year.

“We are coming in a unique way this year by introducing new innovations,” Popoola said.

“Governor Sanwo-Olu has supported us this year in a bigger way. We used to have prizes for 10 winners in the open and veteran categories respectively, now it’s 20 winners each.

“Before we also had N1m for the open category winners, but winner now gets N1.5m, while the veteran winner, who used to receive N300,000, now gets N500,000.

“We are also going to have an empowerment programme where women will benefit from.”

Technical Director, Lagos State Athletics Association, Enefiok Udo-Obong, said they had began on a drive to ensure school girls are involved in the race.

“LSAA has been moving to bring more and more young girls for the Lagos Women Run because one of our goals is to have the girl-child participate more. Our team to the National Youth Games in Asaba was dominated by girls. This year we’ve been motivating schools to participate in the event,” Olympic gold medalist Udo-Obong stated.

Over 8,000 women have already registered for this year’s edition of the event, considered Africa’s biggest race for women.

The race starts at the Tafawa Balewa Square and ends at the Mobolaji Johnson Arena, Onikan.