Standard Chartered Bangkok Marathon

The biggest marathon in Thailand, and one of the largest running events in the region, Standard Chartered Bangkok Marathon was once again a stunning success, attracting some 50,000 participants ranging from world class athletes from as far as Europe, America and Africa to a mixture of enthusiastic international and local runners and leisure joggers and walkers of all ages.

In addition to athletes competing for the best record and a prize purse of over USD85K, this year’s marathon also highlighted running as a way to save the environment under the theme “Running Cool, Living Green”.

There were several “first” in this year’s Bangkok Marathon including the fancy marathon contest on combat climate change concept, a strong army of 500 “wheelchair” runners and an almost 100% traffic free throughout the full-marathon route.

The event wouldn’t achieve such level of high-spirited without the strong involvement of Standard Chartered Bank’s own staff who turned up not only as runners but some also as volunteers in various activities to make the event a real showcase of community support. 

Seeing is Believing (SiB) Ambassadors, Henry Wanyoike and Joseph Kibunja, took part in the 10K race. This year again, the marathon raised funds for His Majesty the King’s charity project, Chaipattana Foundation.

The kick off on race day, 23 November 2008, was presided over by Thailand’s Privy Councillor, Minister of Tourism and Sports, Permanent Secretary of Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, President of National Jogging Association and Standard Chartered Bank’s Southeast Asia CEO Ray Ferguson and Thailand CEO Mark Devadason, among others.

The event was live broadcasted by Television Channel 5 and covered by all major newspapers nationwide.