Press Release - North Pole Marathon - 4/4/06

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
                                   Contact: Richard Donovan (Race Director)
                                            

              
          World's Coolest Marathon to begin at North Pole

  The North Pole Marathon, which is scheduled to take place on April 8th,
      will see a record field of 54 competitors from across the globe. 


Forty-four men and ten women will contest the certified 26.2 mile marathon 
event, the world's most northerly marathon, and BBC will be on location to 
film the race. Kobold expedition watches will be on offer to both male and 
female winners. 

Among the favourites for the men's division is Michael Collins of Ireland 
who won the Sahara half-marathon in the run-up to this event. An 
award-winning novelist, Collins beat former world marathon champion Abel 
Anton in the process. The Irishman has previously run a 2.33 marathon on an 
island off the Antarctic peninsula. 

Meanwhile, the women's division will see recent Antarctic Ice Marathon 
winner, Wendy MacKinnon of Scotland take on Alison Hamlett of England who 
finished fourth in the Mardi Gras Marathon in New Orleans. 

Brent Weigner (USA) will contest his third North Pole Marathon and seven 
others in the race field will seek to join him as members of the global 
Marathon Grand Slam Club. The Grand Slam Club consists of athletes who have 
completed a marathon on all seven continents and at the North Pole. Among 
them, twenty-five year old Mark Sinclair of  England is recognised by 
Guinness World Records as the youngest person to run the distance on all 
seven continents while Kimi Puntillo (USA) is acknowledged as the first 
woman to achieve this feat.

The diverse race field will additionally include a father-son duo, a 
sixty-six year old grandmother, a ten-person corporate team and people 
making their marathon debut. They can expect wind chill temperatures of 
-25C or below in addition to 24 hours of daylight at this time of year. Six 
to twelve feet of ice will separate them from the 12,000 feet of Arctic 
Ocean below. 

Subject to Mother Nature being kind, the race is scheduled to get underway 
in the early hours of April 8th at the drifting Russian ice base at the 
North Pole. Competitors will depart from Spitsbergen (Norway) on the 
previous day and will hope to return within 48 hours. They have the 
opportunity to not only run the marathon, but to stand at the precise 
Geographic North Pole in the course of the trip. Mike King, a UK Sports 
Photographer of the Year recipient, will photograph proceedings.

For more information, including profiles of the participants, see 
www.npmarathon.com.



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