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The Eldoret City Marathon has been postponed and will not take place on Sunday, April 11 as planned. A new date has not yet been confirmed.

Uasin Gishu County governor, Jackson Mandago, postponed the event today following orders by President Uhuru Kenyatta that all sporting events in the country be cancelled or postponed last week.

This would have been the third annual running of the marathon.

“Due to the surging of the coronavirus and following the president’s order of cancelling all sporting events, we saw it wise to postpone the race to a later date which shall be announced,” said Mandango.

“We know our athletes have been training hard and since this was the only race they were targeting, we had no other option other than postponing the event. Let them continue training hard because the race will be held soon when the virus subsides.”

Three-hundred and 26 athletes are registered.

Thirty Kenyan and 13 international athletes, six from Ethiopia, two from Uganda, and some from Europe and Argentina were ready to toe-the-line.

The county and Standard Media Group are the primary sponsors of the event. Eldoret was billed as the richest African marathon.

SHOESTRINGS: The NN Running Hamburg Marathon was also postponed and was scheduled for the same day. Both highly anticipated events are of a few opportunities afforded athletes seeking to qualify for the Tokyo Olympic Games.