28 per cent women runners in a record breaking total of 6,000
PANAJI
Petra Pastorova, six-times national marathon champion from the Czech Republic will be the star runner at the 15th SKF Goa river marathon scheduled to take place at Chicalim on Sunday, December 14.
Petra (48) who has a career best time 2:36:44 hrs for the full marathon ( 42 kms) in 2013 and a 2:42:45 hrs best time in 2025 will undoubtedly be the biggest attraction in the 42 km race this year.
Petra, who has run 50 kms at the 2023 Hyderabad Masters and 100 kms at the Bengaluru Masters in 2024 is excited about coming to Goa. “This the first time I have come to Goa and I am really looking forward to running the SKF Goa river marathon.”
A record 6,000 runners are expected to take part in Goa’s biggest marathon, with a very encouraging 28 per cent of the total runners being women.
The theme for this year’s SKF-GRM is “Pace for Peace”, in a bid to spread the word of peace during these times of war and destruction.
There is a significant number of foreign runners taking part in the race this year. These include Russians (11) , Australians (11), Americans (10), Israelis (5), Germans( 5), Britons ( 5), Irish ( 4), French ( 2) and two Czech runners.
Keeping with the times, the organisers are using technology to enhance the experience of runners. AI based photo selection methods will be used to choose best images of individual runners. Also, for the first time, both bib and face detection will be used to help runners identify their photos.
