2005-03-04
Speech for Peter Sullivan
Chief Executive Officer, Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited
Standard Chartered Marathon 10th Anniversary Announcement

Ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome and thank you for attending today.

With many people in Hong Kong still sore from their efforts last Sunday, it may seem a little early to fire the starting gun for the Standard Chartered Marathon 2006…

… but buoyed by the record support of 30,000 runners and at least as many volunteers and supporters at the Standard Chartered Marathon 2005, we just couldn’t wait any longer.

It is my pleasure to announce that the Standard Chartered Marathon 2006 is the tenth anniversary of our sponsorship. To help ensure the best event ever in our tenth running of the Marathon, we are introducing some very exciting incentives for next year.

First off, the event prize purse will be raised from US$65,000 to US$100,000 in 2006, a nice round number to complement a decade of the Standard Chartered Marathon.

In 2006 Hong Kong Marathon, we are putting forward two prize pools of HK$100,000 each to be shared between all Hong Kong male and female runners qualifying under a specified time.

Adding to the excitement, next year’s marathon will again serve as the finale for the hugely successful Greatest Race on Earth. In its first year, the Greatest Race on Earth has taken the marathon world by storm and we expect that in its second year this challenging series which tasks the world’s top runners to complete 4 marathons in 4 countries in only 5 months will attract even more of the world’s best and bravest runners to Hong Kong.

With these incentives and the strong support we are fortunate to receive from the Hong Kong Government and the local community each and every year, I am confident that we will be able to achieve a new attendance record next year.

As the runners say, it’s never too early to prepare for a marathon and in the coming weeks and months, we will be working hard to create a fitting event for our anniversary year. I hope that the public will join us in accepting the challenge by preparing to run in one of our three race categories for the Standard Chartered Marathon 2006 and by striving for new personal bests in the coming year.

Thank you again for your support and I look forward to seeing you all at the starting line for the Standard Chartered Marathon 2006.

~Ends~

Released on behalf of Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited by Octagon Greater China.