2012 Commercial Bank of Ethiopia Great Ethiopian Run 10km

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Press Release) -Registration for the 2012 CBE Great Ethiopian Run 10km on Sunday 25th November 2012 closed more than six months ahead of the event. Unlike for the previous editions of the race, for the race’s 12th edition the Great Ethiopian Run organising team introduced a new system of registration where participants registered earlier in the year, giving details of their preferred t-shirt size which will then be issued at a new sports expo being staged in the week leading up to the race. The new system also aims to reduce the number of black market t-shirts sales which has become a feature of the event since it became Africa’s biggest road race back in 2002.

This year the race date coincides with the 125th anniversary of Addis Ababa and will form part of the series of activities planned by the Addis Ababa City Administration to celebrate the city’s anniversary. 36,000 participants are expected to take part in the 10km race. The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia has kept its title sponsorship for a second year. CBE is Ethiopia’s biggest bank and is seen as the lead player in Ethiopia’s emerging banking sector. In 2011/12 fiscal year alone, CBE opened 167 branches, taking its total branch network to 550. The bank plans to open an additional 150 branches in the current fiscal year.

Evidence of the continued popularity of the 10km race came from the high demand for race places. 32,000 places were snapped up within two weeks of opening registration for normal participants back in April. Now just four thousand places remain and are being sold at a premium price in support of the race’s Run official fundraising campaign known as “Running for a Child”. The campaign, now in its 8th year, is being jointly promoted by the UN in Ethiopia and Great Ethiopian Run and focuses on social protection and welfare programmes benefiting children in four nominated Ethiopian organizations. The selection of the beneficiary organizations from four regions of Ethiopia has been coordinated by the Ministry of Women, Children and Youth Affairs.

Great Ethiopian Run has set a fundraising target of 1.2 million birr (just over US$65,000) this year. Race participants are being encouraged to join the “Running for a Child – Narrow the Gap to Meet the MDG Goals” campaign by raising money through personal pledges of sponsorship. Of the four thousand charity places one thousand places are being allocated to individual participants at a price of 200 birr, while three thousand are being made available to organizations willing to donate to the campaign.

Since 2005, the Great Ethiopian Run and the United Nations have been raised more than 3 million birr (US$ 170,000) to help a dozen beneficiary charities. In the last two years alone, the following have received funds from the campaign:

* 1,030,000 birr in 20111 for Kebebe Tsehaye Institutional Care and Kechene Institutional Care.
* 808,778 birr in 2010 for Mary Joy and Abebech Gobena.

The sports expo will take place at the Exhibition Center on 21-24 November 2012. There, individual participants will collect their official race pack by handing over a coupon purchased at the time of registration. The expo, the first of its kind in the history of Ethiopia’s biggest road race, is being organised by Century Promotion in collaboration with Great Ethiopian Run and will showcase a number of businesses involved in Ethiopia’s expanding sports industry. Participants who registered through organizations will collect their race pack one week before the event (14-17 November) from the Great Ethiopian Run office.