Press Release

Waterside Half Marathon Secures Tesco As New Sponsor

Monday, 07 July 2008

Derry City Council is delighted to announce Tesco as the new title sponsor of the Waterside Half Marathon. The leading retailer has confirmed that they will be supporting the event for the next three years and assisting Council to promote sports activities and a healthy and active lifestyle.

The Tesco Waterside Half Marathon is scheduled to take place on Saturday, September 13th and is one of the city’s annual sporting highlights attracting hundreds of participants from across the city and region. The Tesco Waterside Half Marathon caters for runners, joggers, wheelchair participants and walkers of all abilities and offers a three-person team relay. A 3k family fun run for anyone not up to the Half Marathon. The online training programme was launched in May and athletes and novice runners across the city have been busy training ahead of the autumn event.

The Mayor Councillor Gerard Diver said he was delighted to have Tesco on board as title sponsors of the event. “The Waterside Half Marathon has been established in the city for over 25 years and has enjoyed great success, with a record number of almost 1,000 entrants last year so we are delighted to have Tesco as our sponsors for this quality sporting event. This event is a great way of providing opportunities for promoting healthy and active lifestyles. Last year’s new route proved to be a great success and very popular and I would encourage all our citizens who enjoy exercising to go online and take advantage of the fantastic training schedule which will help ensure they have an enjoyable race from start to finish.”

Colin Hampsey, Corporate Affairs Manager for Tesco in Northern Ireland said the company was delighted to be associated with this premier sporting event in the North West. “We are proud to be able to support the Waterside Half Marathon for the next three years, this type of sponsorship enables us demonstrate our commitment to helping get the public get active and healthy, and helps us build on our hugely successful Sports for Schools & Clubs scheme, and our sponsorship of the Cancer Research 10k and Race For Life events. As a major employer in the city we have already some strong links within the area, and this sponsorship further underpins our wider corporate social responsibility of giving back to the communities in which we trade and our ongoing commitment to the City.”

The official charities for the September half marathon are the Foyle Hospice and Aware Defeat Depression. Noel Mc Monagle, community fundraiser with the Foyle Hospice said the Hospice was once again delighted to be part of the event while Alison Smyth, Fundraising Manager, with Aware Defeat Depression said it provided them with a great opportunity to raise the profile of their charity.

This year’s Tesco Waterside Half Marathon will use the same course as 2007 with the race starting and finishing in the grounds of Gransha Park. The race headquarters will be housed within Oakgrove Integrated College, providing participants onsite changing and showering facilities. The event offers a £5000 plus prize fund covering categories from Under 20’s to Over 70’s with ribboned medals, commemorative printed T-shirts and sports drinks for all finishers.

Speaking about the event, organiser Gerry Lynch said that he was anticipating another great turnout and encouraged runners, joggers and walkers of all abilities who are interested in participating and who haven’t already registered to do so as soon as possible and get training.

For information on the half marathon, to download the training schedule and to obtain a registration form log onto www.derrycity.gov.uk/halfmarathon .

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For further information contact the Marketing and Communications Section, Derry City Council. Tel. 028 7137 6504

Notes to Editor:

Tesco recently won an award for ‘best practice of Corporate Social Responsibility’ with the industry magazine for investors, IR magazine. The award highlights how Tesco have successfully put corporate responsibility at the heart of how it does business. It also recognises the effectiveness of its teams in communicating to the investment community and to all concerned with its community and environment work. This award comes hot on the heels of two Grocer Gold Awards for Britain's Favourite Supermarket and Online Retailer of the Year.

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