Athletes hail Lagos Women Run star prize winner

Following the successful hosting of the just ended fifth edition of the yearly Lagos Women Run, tagged: “Run Your Race: Stay Active,” competitors and participants alike acknowledged the effort the Lagos State government to ensure the race hold amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

The race was won by Mwanvwang Patience Dalyop from Plateau State in a time of 33:43.72 in the Open Category, with Awawu Haruna second in 34:02.24, while David Abiye finished third in 34:16.39 to go home with N1, 000,000, N700, 000 and N500, 000 respectively.

In the Veteran class, which attracted a cash prize of N300, 000, Anna Seriki from Lagos State came first, while Ladi Henry from Plateau State got N200, 000 for coming second and third-placed Kareem Bolanle got N100, 000.

Many athletes expressed joy that this year’s star prize was won by a Nigerian, as against the 2019 edition won by a Kenyan, Cheptoeck Careen. Dalyop, a Nigerian won N1 million an improvement over the N750, 000 won by Careen last year.

Speaking on her feat, Dalyop said: “I am happy to be here in Lagos, winning the star prize was great. Lagos is a place of opportunity and we from other states are always jealous of Lagos in the areas of sports development”.

An elderly lawyer, Morenike, who took part in the race for leisure, said the Lagos Women Run afforded her the occasion to once again exercise her body with all seriousness coming out from several months of the lockdown.

Speaking on the occasion, Coordinator of Lagos Women Run, Tayo Popoola, expressed joy that the event took place despite the COVID-19 pandemic scare, adding that race were held in other centres like Ikorodu, Badagry, Ikeja.

“What we’ve done this year was to actually give people places were they could run. We didn’t want to bring people together like we normally do, but we gave them opportunity to run in their own environment at their convenient time.”