Trailhiker 2015 | 256 team slots already filled up

Trailhiker organizers and supporters

256 or over half of the slots available for the sixth edition of Sands China Macau Eco TrailHiker have already been filled.  The annual charitable event has received overwhelming support from local communities and enterprises, which had already made their pre-subscriptions earlier.
During a press conference held yesterday afternoon at the Venetian Macao – the event’s title sponsor – Robert J. Kirby, the director of Macau TrailHiker revealed that the event’s crew has undertaken more training and is prepared for a more “efficient and fun carnival event,” which will benefit the city’s population in need.
The TrailHiker event attracted 560 hikers when it was first organized, and the number is expected to swell to 2,000 this year. Mr Kirby said that he was delighted to see the number of teams growing annually as well, which will stand at 500 this year. Half of the total slots have already been reserved.
Over the previous five years, the group has raised a total of MOP1.4 million for different local charitable organizations, with more than 6,200 participants leaving their footprints on the routes.
The Macau Special Olympics (MSO) and Macau Association for the Mentally Handicapped are the two beneficiaries of this year’s edition. Athletes with intellectual disabilities from the latter association will run in the 10-kilometer category for the first time.
Siu Yu Hong, MSO chief executive officer stated: “We want to spread a message of social inclusion to the public. The mentally challenged can do most things normal people do. Two runners in our team are our volunteers while the other two are mentally challenged.”
Similar to the previous editions, the fundraising activity seeks to elevate public awareness of the often neglected topic of preserving greenery in Coloane as participants would be greeted with natural scenery along the course.
Aside from the environmental theme of “Exploring the Greener Side of Macau with You” this year, Mr Kirby also announced in his opening speech that another significant goal of the event was to encourage more locals to engage in physical exercise, citing the figure from the World Health Organization that 1.9 billion out of 7 billion in the world currently suffers from obesity.
“Because the world is becoming increasingly unhealthy, we want to get more people who don’t normally exercise to join our event, and to do it not just once a year, but to do it regularly, even weekly,” said the event’s organizer.
Kirby also disclosed that the organizer would possibly introduce a tweak to the course options, which is currently at a 30-kilometer route for corporations and a 10-kilometer route for families or those participating at leisure.
“We don’t have the 20-K course right now, and we have requests from people who do the 10-K every year, wanting to step up to a longer distance but feeling the 30-K’s too far, so they’re looking for something in between. Therefore the introduction of a 20-K course is quite possible for next year,” he said, adding that the organizer did not wish to “deviate much from the main concept in the few years to come.
The press conference yesterday also hosted government representatives from the Macau Sport Development Board and Macau Government Tourist Office, Windy Lou and Betty Fok. Mark McWhinnie, senior vice-president of Resort Operations and Development for Sands China Ltd. was also in attendance.
Last year, the charitable event drew a record 450 team entries from around the globe, with overseas runners from mainland China, Portugal, Hong Kong and Malaysia.
Macau Daily Times is the media partner for the event.
Staff reporter