Great Ethiopian Run: Elite winners to take home prizes of 100,000 Birr

Great Ethiopian Run has announced that the cash prizes for the men’s and women’s winner of the elite athletes race has been doubled to 100,000 for this year’s races. In total the elite athlete prize purse will be around half a million birr, the biggest ever for a race in Ethiopia. 

The increase in prize money is in line with one of the objectives of the Great Ethiopian Run 10km to create a platform for new athletes to emerge and have opportunity to compete on the international stage. 

“We have come a long way in 16 years, and giving better rewards to the athletes has always figured highly in our plans,” commented Ermias Ayele, GM of Great Ethiopian Run. “We started with winners’ prizes of at 10,000. This year the winners will receive ten times that number.”

Another new addition to this year’s race is the use of race numbers for all participants, a move designed to address the problem of fake t-shirt duplication. All participants are expected to wear their race number on the front of their t-shirt to show that they have officially entered the race. Anyone attempting to participate without a race number will be considered an illegal participant and will be prevented from taking part.

The 17th edition of the Total Great Ethiopian Run is now a few weeks away. A wave start initiated last year to accommodate greater runners will again be in force this year. The earlier green wave is for faster runners aiming for less then one hour; the red wave five minutes later for finishers taking more than an hour. 

Source: Great Ethiopian Run