Mumbai marathon gains IAAF recognition

The Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon, to be run on January 20 next year, would be held under the banner of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), according to its promoters Procam.

"From fifth edition onwards the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon would be run under the IAAF banner following its recognition of the event. It would be among a handful of silver label events to be conducted by the IAAF," said Procam's Vivek Singh at a media conference on Tuesday.

"The Mumbai marathon received the awarding of the IAAF silver label from its Road Running Co-ordinator Sean Wallace-Jones. For it to gain the IAAF's recognition it had to fulfill many stringent conditions.

"One of these is the presence of at least five minimum athletes clocking timings below 2 hours 12 minutes for men and 2:32 for women in the preceding 24 months," Singh said.

"We would have qualified for the gold label too had it not been for better times clocked. But we have our own heart-break hill - Peddar road - which the athletes have to surmount both on the way out and way in," he explained.