Thousands participate in the 12th Laguna Phuket Marathon

Thousands participate in the 12th Laguna Phuket Marathon

Phuket Gazette 

Athletes line up at the start of the 2017 Laguna Phuket Marathon. Photo: Laguna Phuket

PHUKET: More than 4,000 runners lined-up yesterday morning to run the Marathon and Half Marathon distances at the 12th annual Laguna Phuket Marathon. With a record turnout of almost 7,000 runners during the two-day event, the Marathon and Half Marathon proved to be the most popular. With more than 1,600 athletes competing in the marathon alone, it was the largest field of marathon runners ever at the Laguna Phuket Marathon.

Starting at 4am, marathon runners made their way past Sirinath National Park and the Bang Tao beachfront, finally running through the grounds of Laguna Phuket to finish at Laguna Grove.

In the lead group early on, was Thai ultra-distance specialist Sanya Khanchai who, after a seventh place finish in the 10.5km on Saturday, stepped up to his favored Marathon distance yesterday, but it was Japanese runner Nakajima Hiroki who stole an early lead and by he reached the 10.5km split was more than 12 minutes ahead of the second placer.

Nakajima went on to extend his lead further and finish in a time of 02:34:57.6, beating last year’s winning time by almost three minutes, and more than 30 minutes ahead of second place finisher David Escolar Ballesteros (ESP). Cheng-Ya Sha (TWN) finished third. 

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