When the Borneo International Marathon (BIM) was organised for the first time in October 2008, the then organiser, Championship Sports Events Sdn Bhd, set out to achieve several main goals. Amongst others, it sought to instill a healthy lifestyle to local Sabahans through sporting activities, promote Sabah as a sports-tourism destination, revive an annual marathon event, which was last held some two decades ago, as well as raise funds for charity.

However, of all those goals above, there was a special focus on the health benefits of sports activities. Obesity in Malaysia is now a major health issue with the number of obese people almost tripling over the last 15 years. By 2010 obese people account for about 14% of the population, and the trend seems to be progressing. Obesity can give rise to chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, heart and kidney problems. Malaysians, therefore, face a greater risk of developing these diseases in the future. Furthermore, it has been observed that obesity is also prevalent among young children due to bad eating habit and sedentary lifestyle. A recent report estimates 3 million Malaysians are diabetics, and the trend is said to be alarming.

By its fourth edition in May 2011, the BIM had attracted over 2200 participations, made up of local and foreign runners. The size of participation has been encouraging; it was obvious that the popularity of BIM was on the rise. However, upon undertaking the task of organising BIM 5, the Kinabalu Running Club (KRC) realised that more emphasis had to be made to attract school children onto the bandwagon so that they, too, could benefit in terms of adopting a healthy lifestyle through sporting activities.

It was with this in mind that the KRC had created a new category under “School 10km” which, as the name suggests, is restricted to school children only, under the age of 18. Although KRC is organising the event within very tight budget constraints, it nevertheless allocates small cash prizes for the top 10 winners under the school category.

KRC is therefore confident that parents and guardians would be all out to encourage their young children to register for the BIM, thus instilling in them the love of running, while at the same time giving them health benefits for years to come.

Written by,

Cornelius Koh