Late April saw a milestone event for sport in Central Asia as Virtus, the global sporting federation for athletes with an intellectual impairment, brought the 2024 Virtus World Half Marathon and 10K Road races to Almaty, Kazakhstan. 28 Virtus athletes from 8 countries competed in the events.
The Virtus events took place as part of the 2024 Almaty Half Marathon, the popular mass participation running event that’s a building blocks towards the Almaty Marathon, one of Central Asia’s largest sporting events.
This year 8,000 runners from more than 30 countries took part in the Half Marathon, which took in a route throughout Almaty from First President Park to the city’s Central Stadium. The event offered a 10k and half marathon, as well as Nordic walking and team relay options, and brought together everyone from elite international athletes to those taking part in their first ever sporting events.
In a further move towards inclusion, a number of wheelchair athletes took part in the Half Marathon and were for the first time categorised as part of the general classification for participants.
Galimzhan Yessenov, a Kazakh businessman whose charitable fund the Courage To Be First Foundation puts on the Almaty Half Marathon and a host of other sporting events in Central Asia, said he was “immensely proud” that the Half Marathon was taking further steps to encourage inclusivity in sport in Central Asia.