Ms Swati Gadhave and Mr Govind Singh win the half marathon race in their categories
Bhubaneswar: The fourth edition of the Tata Steel Bhubaneswar Half Marathon, organised today at Kalinga Stadium, witnessed participation from 5,000 running enthusiasts from across the nation, making the event an immense success this year as well. The only professional half marathon (21.1 km) run of the city organised by the steel major in association with Sports and Youth Services Department, Government of Odisha, was flagged off at 0600 hrs by His Excellency, Governor of Odisha, Prof Ganeshi Lal.
Among the dignitaries present on the occasion were Dr Prasanna Kumar Patasani, Member of Parliament, Shri Chandra Sarathi Behera, Minister of Sports and Youth Services Department, Shri Ashok Chandra Panda, Minister of Tourism and Culture, Members of Legislative Assembly Shri Priyadarshi Mishra and Shri Bijaya Kumar Mohanty, Shri Ananta Narayan Jena, Mayor of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, Shri Vishal Kumar Dev, Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Sports and Youth Services Department, Dr Sandeep Tripathi, Principle Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife), Shri Deepak Mohanty, Director of Mines, Shri Debidutta Biswal, Special Secretary to Government, Forest and Environment and Shri R Vineel Krishna, Director, Sports and Youth Services Department.
They were joined by Tata Steel’s Shri Chanakya Chaudhary, Vice President, Corporate Services, Shri Arun Misra, Vice President, Raw Materials, Shri Debashish Jena, Chief Resident Executive, Shri Kulvin Suri, Chief Corporate Communications, several other senior officials of the company, along with noted actors Sabyasachi Mishra and Archita Sahoo.
The Half Marathon covered a distance of 21.1 km starting from Kalinga Stadium and moving on to the National Highway through Jaydev Vihar, past Khandagiri Square and returning via the same route, finally terminating at Kalinga Stadium. This was followed by the 10 km run for women and men, and the 5 km run for girls and boys under 16 years of age. This year also saw the inspiring participation of differently-abled sports enthusiasts whose passion spurred other participants on.
To ensure the safety and comfort of all runners, Tata Steel organised ambulances and water counters along the route. The Commissionerate of Police played a significant role in traffic management. State-of-the-art technology consisting of timing mats and its control units, radio frequency identification (RFID) chips, split timing mats on route, tracking camera, wi-fi network on route as per international standards were used to ensure a world standard conduct of the half marathon. All participants were given branded T-Shirts for participating in the race.
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