The fourth edition of the Phnom Penh International Half Marathon, which marks the confluence of three special occasions – Queen Mother Norodom Monineath’s birthday celebrations, the World Environment Day and the International Olympic Day – is expected to touch a new high in participation numbers this year.

Set to take off on Sunday, June 15, from its start and finish point in front of the Royal Palace, the 21km run and all other supporting attractions will help raise funds for charity causes including the Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital and families of landmine victims.

For the first time in three years, the participants will run a perfect half-marathon course thanks to the Association of International Marathons and Distance Races (AIMS) standardisation of measurements in sync with similar events in other parts of the world.

AIMS, a member-based organisation of 350 of the world’s distance races in 100 countries and territories, is actively involved in marking out the route for Cambodia’s first-ever full marathon to be run in the middle of August around the famous Angkor Wat Temple complex.

“I am happy that AIMS has done a very good job in accurately marking the distances this year. In the last two runs we used approximates,” National Olympic Committee of Cambodia secretary-general Vath Chamroeun told the Post yesterday.

“So far there have been close to 1,000 registrations and on the day of the event we expect these figures to be any where between 4,500 and 5,000 in various categories.

“The Angkor Wat Half Marathon in December last year touched an all-time record and the Sihanoukville Half Marathon in March this year also saw an increase in participation numbers.

I expect this growth trend to continue as excitement builds up towards our first full marathon in August,” the secretary added.

Like last year, the organisers will open a registration booth in front of the Royal Palace to facilitate both foreigners and locals to go through a smooth entry process for the Phnom Penh event.

The booth will open on June 8 and will operate from morning to evening up until the day before the event, handing out to the entrants T-shirts along with track numbers in accordance with the category they choose to run.

To register, contact Cambodia Events or the National Olympic Committee of Cambodia on 023 213 525, 016 355 005 or 023215869, or email either [email protected] or [email protected].

For online registration, click on the “contact us” tab of the website www.goadventureasia.com.