GROE to inspire environmental responsibility on global scale

Mumbai, Jan 7 (UNI) 'The Race for a Living Planet', a new environmental initiative to engage the public as well as the runners, has also been introduced for this year's The Greatest Race on Earth (GROE) which is made up of four marathons -- Nairobi, Singapore, Mumbai and Hong Kong.

GROE, coined the 'World Cup of Marathons', has grown to become a truly international event fielding a breadth of elite athletes. With the arrival of the new series format and the Environment Challenge, a record number of national teams are participating, with 54 from 34 countries signing up. New countries include the USA, Brazil, Peru, Germany, Lebanon, Japan and Russia.

Along with 1.08 million dollars prize pool on offer to the national teams, participating GROE countries now also stand to benefit from an additional 1 milliond dollars as part of the Environment Challenge, a release said here today.

The new Environment Challenge encourages people to select and undertake up to eight environmental pledges suggested on www.thegreatestrace.com, and then nominate the GROE nation they wish their pledge(s) to support.

Standard Chartered will donate 1 million dollars to support vital environmental conservation projects, working in partnership with WWF, that will benefit the three nations that generate the most environmental pledges per capita. The results will be announced following the final GROE Marathon in Hong Kong on February 18, the release said.

This year, the overall Nations Challenge prize pool has been increased to 1.08 million dollars. This remains the largest guaranteed prize pool in the athletics world to date. The overall winners of the Men's and Women's Nations Challenges will take away 100,000 dollars each, as well as the coveted Gold Baton -- a 9 carat solid gold relay baton, it added.

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