Tens of thousands of athletes, including two Sri Lankans, who are to attend the Singapore Marathon today, were not seen at the route seeing journey that took place yesterday (6).

Although many supporters would consider it a bane for the athletes and especially for the first timers here, the organisers on the contrary would probably find it a blessing in disguise because of the magnitude of the Singapore Marathon which has over 50,000 participants this year.

Two buses full of athletes left for the route seeing journey last morning but many of them had to return empty. But, from the organisers’ point of view, had each one running in today’s marathon turned up for this route seeing journey, not even more than thousand busses would have been enough for the purpose.

It is known here that the last set of starters in today’s marathon would not actually start the event until the front runners pass at least 5kms in the race.

M. Wang, the Race Director, who showed the athletes their route yesterday, said the last of the 15,000 runners, who are to compete in the ‘full marathon’, won’t be able to start their run until the first set of runners had gone pass the first 3kms.

This international marathon will be held today through the busy Singapore highways which will be closed during most of the morning rush hours.

Over 15,000 athletes will take part in what is called the ‘full marathon’ –the key event— while 12,000 will run in the ‘half marathon.’ 21,500 are expected to run the 10kms race while there will be 2000 youngsters who would be engaged in the Kids’ Dash.