Mukesh Sharma

Kalimpong,20th April

Run with Roshni Fondation will be organising Kalimpong Half Marathon 2016 in 1st May this year.

‘Run with Roshni Foundation’( RWRF) a registered Charity trust who is  supporting under privileged Gorkha runners from the District of Darjeeling to run marathons in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Shillong, Bangalore and Daman since 2012.

The main vision of RWRF is to eliminate the identity crisis faced by Indian Gorkhas in their own motherland and to create the Gorkha runners, who will win Olympic Marathons for India.

"To select the best runners from the District of Darjeeling, RWRF is organising Kalimpong Half Marathon every year on 1st May. From this marathon, we select three boys and three girls, who will come in first, second and third position to run Mumbai Marathon in January every year. These six runners are local runners from the District of Darjeeling." informed Roshni Rai , an amateur marathoner who is a corporate lawyer by profession, whose dream is to produce an Olympian from her neck of the woods. Roshni, who hails from Pedong, about 20 kms from here is facilitating the participation of the  marathoners under her “Run with Roshni” banner to showcase the potential of athletes from the hills.

Addressing media Person today Rai informed that Mumbai Marathon is the only international standard marathon of India and to participate in the same, one has to qualify by running a marathon organised by State Athletic Federation of India. "Unfortunately, in Darjeeling we do not have any marathon, which will help runners to qualify for Mumbai Marathon, however after seeing the performance of the Gorkha runners from the team Run with Roshni, organisers of Mumbai Marathon has started accepting the six registrations, which we select from Kalimpong Half Marathon." Last year too 3 boys and 3 girls from Hills participated in Mumbai Marathan

This year Kalimpong Half Marathon will start from Pedong and finish at Kalimpong 21 kms.


Roshni said the performance of the some of the runners in the last marathon and an article she read on the long distance runners of Kenyawere the inspiration behind her “Run with Rosni” initiative.  “What struck me most about the article I read on the Kenyan long-distance runners was the idea of having a running culture. Just like the Kenyan, especially the Kalenjin tribe, runners, we also come from high altitude, but there is no running culture in our community. We must develop the culture of running,”she said.