NAIROBI, Kenya, July 3, 2025 – The Nairobi City Marathon will from next year feature wheelchair races as part of its programme.
Race director Kennedy Tanui says they haven’t been able to incorporate the competition thus far due to logistical reasons.
“It’s a work in progress to include the wheelchair race in the next year’s edition. It was not included in this year’s edition due to logistical reasons,” Tanui said.
The annual event is set for this Sunday (July 6) with four categories of competition, including men and women’s 42km, 21km, 10km and the 4km fun run.
The competition was first held in May 2022 and is majorly run on the Nairobi Expressway.
This, alone, has often presented logistical challenges to organisers on how to incorporate wheelchair races as part of the competition categories.
Plans to now include it in subsequent editions of the event comes even as organisers dream big of growing into a World Marathon Majors.
There are still some way off from making the dream a reality as far as organisation, prize money and advertisement is concerned.
However, organisers have been working hard, collaborating with a number of partners to make it a ‘green event’ by employing sustainability methods.
These include proper waste management, electric transportation and installation of air sensors.
Speaking during a media briefing for this year’s edition, Anderson Kehbila, Programme Leader for Energy and Climate Change at SEI Africa, said the institute is keen to help the marathon comply with Sports for Climate goals.
“Like in previous editions of the marathon, SEI Africa will support Athletics Kenya in installing air quality sensors to monitor the quality of air around the marathon course and ensure the event meets the environmental standards and climate change goals provided for in the World Athletics Sustainability Strategy and the UNFCCC Sports for Climate Action Framework respectively,” he said.
Kehbila said the marathon is, thus far, on the right path with regards to these goals.
“Results so far show that pollution levels are usually low between early morning and 10 am. That is good news for those competing in the marathon. We are also involved with other partners in tree planting, waste management, sustainable transport and heat stress management. Going deeper into air quality, we want to get data on pollution levels and submit to AK (Athletics Kenya) who have used them to prepare sustainability reports,” he added.
This year’s competition will start at Uhuru Park, running majorly on Uhuru Highway before terminating at the Processional Way.
The 21km will set things off at 8:15 am, followed by the 42km at 8:45 am.
