Over 30,000 women participate in Dublin charity run

DUBLIN, June 4 — Over 30,000 women participated in a charity run in the Irish capital Dublin on Sunday.
Entitled 2018 Vhi Women’s Mini Marathon, the event kicked off at 2:00 p.m. (local time) in downtown Dublin on Sunday.
Lizzie Lee, a woman from the country’s southern county of Cork, won the race by finishing the 10-km run in a time of 34 minutes and 18 seconds, failing to break a record set in the 35-year history of the event, which stood at 31 minutes and 28 seconds.
Top prize of the Visually Impaired Category of the race went to a local woman named Sinead Kane who finished the run in 47 minutes and 54 seconds while Sauna Bouquet, a 24-year-old woman from the country’s west city of Galway, snatched the title for the Wheelchair Category.
About half of the participants came from the rest part of the country and some of them came from abroad, said organizers.
First introduced in 1983, the annually held event is aimed at raising much-needed funds for charities, said Voluntary Health Insurance (Vhi), a local health insurance company which is a title sponsor of this year’s event.
All the women participating in the event need to pay entry fees which stood at 23 euros (about 27 U.S. dollars) per person for this year. Participants also need to pay between 6.5 euros and eight euros if they want to get a souvenir medal for the event. The event also receives funds from other sources.
All the money raised in the event will go to different charities like hospitals and healthcare centers and the money donated by participants will go to charities according to their own choices, said organizers.
The exact amount of money raised in this year’s event has not been announced. Last year the event raised an estimated 9.3 million euros, bringing to over 210 million euros the estimated total raised since the event was first introduced, according to Vhi.
The event is the world’s largest of its kind and has been copied by several European cities including Liverpool, Glasgow, London and Oslo, claimed organizers.
Men are not allowed to take part in the event and only females aged above 14 are eligible for entering the event. There is no age limit for participants of the event though organizers advise them to make sure they are physically fit for the event. In 2017, over 400 participants were aged over 70, said organizers. (1 euro=1.166 U.S. dollars)

Xinhua