The 7 Mobily Jeddah Marathon was launched Monday by Abdullah Bakhshab, chairman of the marathon committee. The marathon, which will be held on March 9 under the patronage of Prince Mish'al Bin Majed, Governor of Jeddah, will be run by athletes from the Kingdom as well as others from the United States, Morocco, Ethiopia, France, Kenya, Jordan, Lebanon, UAE, Qatar, Nigeria and Bahrain. This will make the event an international marathon, said Bakhshab. He further announced that Saudi sports stars, such as champion Ibraheem Ahmed Khaloufa, Ali Ahmed Al-Amri, Birkan Al-Mowalad, Rashed Al-Qahtani, Ali Al-Shahrani, Hamza Al-Shareef and Hasan Al-Yami will take part in the marathon. Apart from Bakhshab, the official launching of the 7th Mobily Jeddah Marathon was attended by Sheikh Mazen Batarjee, president of Al-Bir charitable organization in Jeddah; Taher Al-Dabagh, Mobily director in the Western Province; and Sami Sindi, a Nesma official on behalf of Shiekh Saleh Al-Turki, President of Nesma, a major sponsor of the Jeddah marathon. Bakhshab said that the Jeddah marathon is being held “on an international level with the participation of athletes from around the world”. He added that the distance is not 42 km at the moment because “we are trying to build up Saudi athletes”. “We cannot have them start with 42 km, but in the coming four years, we have plans to increase the distance by five km every year, and then in 2014 we will have a 42-km marathon,” he explained. Bakhshab said that the marathon committee is “encouraging everyone to participate in order to support charity work”. Mazen Batarjee, the Al-Bir president, said, “This project is a charitable and cooperative effort involving young people, teachers and students. Our main aim is to support charity through sports activity.” The marathon involves three races of different lengths for different groups of runners. Each race will have its own track and starting point. Batterjee expects 5,000 runners to take part in the marathon, 3,000 of whom will be students with the remainder made up of professional athletes and members of the general public. There will also be 200 orphans from Al-Bir charitable society participating in the marathon as organizers and runners, he said. Batarjee pointed out that the marathon is being organized with the cooperation of the regional governor's office, the Ministry of Education, Jeddah municipality, Saudi Red Crescent, Civil Defense, traffic police, Saudi Arabian Athletic Federation, and the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities.
