The second staging of the Manila Marathon this coming weekend drew a huge number of 19,000 participants, making it one of the biggest running events to be held in the country this year.

International marathoner Rio dela Cruz made the disclosure five days before the international race presented by Samsung Galaxy, fires off at the SM Mall of Asia Complex on Sunday.

The event features four races at 42km, 21km, 10km and 5km, and offers a total of P700K in cash prizes, including P100K each for the male and female champion in the premier 42km competition.

“We’re happy to announce that we already have 19,000 runners,” said Dela Cruz in Tuesday’s Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum at the conference hall of the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex.

“In the 42k event, we have 3,000 participants. And, this is surprising, we have 7.000 participants in the 21k, making it one of the biggest 21k events that we have organized. We also have 5,200 runners in the 10k event and almost 4,000 runners in the 3k event.”

With the big number of participants, safety and security of the runners are of foremost concern for the organizers, according to Andrew Neri, managing director of Run Rio Inc., who also appeared in the weekly Forum.

“This is like two events in terms of number of participants because the average number of participants is just around 8,000 to 10,000. But now, we have 19,000 so we also have to double our security, our doctors, and ambulances since we’re giving top priority to our safety and security.”

Sanctioned by the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association and recognized as part of the World Athletics’ rankings competition, the race will showcase members of the national team such as Christine Hallasgo, Artjoy Torregosa, Richard Salano, and Arlan Arbois as well as entries from Japan, the United States, Singapore, UK, Canada, Malaysia, China, South Korea, Kenya, France, Poland, Switzerland, among others.