Pune Half Marathon returns to the Indian road racing circuit this month after a gap of 2 years due to COVID-19

The third edition of the Bajaj Allianz Pune Half Marathon is scheduled to be held on November 27, after a gap of two years due to COVID-19 pandemic. The prize money in the road race offered to Indian athletes will have a big bonus for improving the national record in men and women’s half marathon, Vikas Singh, CEO of APG Running and Fitpage, told Sportskeeda on Thursday.

“Apart from winning the purse, the athlete will get an additional Rs 5 lakh to break the national record in 21km,” Singh, who is a race organizer, said.

India’s star steeplechase runner and Commonwealth Games silver medalist Avinash Sable holds the national men’s 21km record of 60 minutes and 30 seconds, set in 2020 in Delhi. The 28-year-old army runner was the first Indian to break the 61-minute barrier for the 21km. However, Sable wasn’t able to improve his time in the 2022 edition of the Delhi Half Marathon, which was recently held.

The best time in the women’s 21km is 73 minutes, set by Parul Chaudhary in 2018.

According to Singh, the registration for the Pune Half Marathon race has already started on October 30 and entries will close on November 13.

“We had good response in the first two editions of the Pune Half Marathon. We are expecting a big response this time too as the prize money has been increased to Rs 28 lakh from Rs 21 lakh,” Singh said.

The competition is only open to Indian athletes and was postponed in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic. In the inaugural edition of the race, 15000 athletes competed in different race categories.

Apart from the main 21km for men and women’s group, there will be family and fun races conducted over a distance of 5km and 3km, respectively.

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