2013 Obudu Mountain Race Slated for November 23 – LOC.

The Local Organising Committee (LOC) for the 9th Obudu International Mountain Race and the 5th African Mountain Running Championships has fixed Saturday November 23 as date for the two-in-one race.

Obudu Mountain Terrace.
Obudu Mountain Terrace.

Chairman of the committee, William Archibong, said at the weekend that the race has returned to its traditional end of the month date and promised a bigger and better event this year.

Last year the 18th National Sports Festival in Lagos forced a change from the norm. ” The LOC has moved the timing of the race back to the traditional end of the month date and this year’s race will hold on the penultimate weekend of November,” he said.

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Archibong added that registration of athletes for this year’s race has closed and assured that the committee will organise another hitch-free, world-class competition, especially with the mapping of the race course now in conformity with the standard set by the world governing body for mountain running.

“Like it was last year, this year’s race will be run over 12 kilometres,” he added. The Obudu International Mountain Race is an annual mountain running competition organised by the Cross River state government in conjunction with the Athletic Federation of Nigeria and holds at the prestigious Obudu ranch resort in Obudu. It has the largest total prize-money available of any mountain race and is known as “the world’s richest mountain race”. The men’s and women’s competition winners receive US$50,000 each, and there is a total prize pot of around $270,000.

The combination of the distance of the race and the rewards on offer means that it attracts world-class road running athletes as well as mountain running athletes. It is an associate member race of the World Mountain Running Association (WMRA) and is also endorsed by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).

Source: This Day.