Under the auspices of Special Olympics Pakistan (SOP) and with the support of major sponsors, Lakson Investment and Faysal Islamic Bank, the 9th SOP Lakson Investment Unified Marathon was held at Emaar Sales Centre, DHA Phase 8 on Sunday 11th February 2024.
Categories offered were 21 Km (Half Mara-thon), 10 km, 5 km, and 1 km unified walk, and wheelchair walk was also included for differently abled children and adults.
Muhammad Sajjad of DHA Creek completed the hat trick by winning the half marathon for the third consecutive time.
Sajjad, representing the Sindh Track and Field Club, covered the prescribed distance in 1 hour 14 minutes 6 seconds, Muhammad Waqas second and Shakir Usman came third.
In the Women’s half marathon, Sahrish Qayyum won with 1 hour 50 minutes 50 seconds; Meshal Hussain second and Nida Anwar emerged as the third position holder.
Special guests were Faysal Islamic Bank Presi-dent Yousuf Hussain, Iqbal Ali Lakhani, and Chairman Lakson, who along with US Consul General- Karachi Conrad Tribble, and SOP Chairperson Ronak Lakhani inaugurated the marathon by cutting the ribbon for each race category.
The purpose of the marathon was to express solidarity with special athletes, to respect, include, and accept them with their special abilities, and to enable them to become a productive member of the community.
Renowned personalities including Brand Am-bassador of SOP Sarwat Gilani, renowned singer Faisal Kapadia, Kashif Mustafa of Lakson Invest-ments, Attiyah Khan of English Biscuits, Fatima Siddiqui, Senior Brand Manager of Palmolive, Rameez Sattar of Collectibles, representatives of Cybernet, Nayapay, EFU, Engro, Chevron, FOTCO and National Foods, SOP fitness ambassador Adnan Gandhi and Shoaib Nizami of Sports in Pakistan, special persons, students, men, women, children, elderly people, artists, athletes and dignitaries of the city also participated in this occasion.
