Accor athletes race to survive in Phuket
The Fantastic Phuket team, from left, Hervé Duprat, GM of the Novotel Phuket Resort, See-Som, Sales & Marketing Manager at the All Seasons Naiharn, Tu, Sport & Activities Manager at the Novotel Phuket and Pop, Sales Director at the Mercure Patong.
If you happen to be on Koh Lone, in the middle of Chalong Bay, on March 24, be careful you don’t get run over by 16 red-faced, sweating hotel people pounding along a 4-km course. If you do get run over, consider it a sacrifice to the well-being of the children of Thailand.
The hotel athletes will all be from the Accor hotel group, which is staging this year’s Race For Survival – a group fund-raising event – in Phuket. It’s a pretty grueling event: four days of kayak, swimming, bike and running races, all aimed at raising funds for Accor’s Yim Kids Fund, which will use the money to improve educational opportunities and children’s health.
Specific targets will include supporting slum schools in Bangkok, support for abandoned, HIV-infected children being looked after at Bangkok’s Mercy Centre, helping Koh Lao School in Ranong, which is still suffering from the effects of the 2004 Asian Tsunami, and improving the fishing equipment of villagers on Koh Lone.
The Race For Survival has raised significant charity funds in various places around the world. For example, the event held in Fiji raised more than 5.3 million baht for medical equipment. The minimum target for this year’s Phuket event is 3.6 million baht.
Sixteen teams of four from Accor hotels and offices ranging from Australia to Hong Kong will compete in the Phuket event:
Day 1 – March 22 – will see participants compete in a 5km run from Patong, a 1km swim at Patong Beach and a 20km bike ride from Patong to Naiharn. Day 2 has a 15km mountain bike race, a 1km swim at Naiharn and a 3km kayak race, also at Naiharn. Day 3′s competition consists of a 10km bike ride from Naiharn to Panwa, a 1km kayak race from Panwa to Koh Lone Island and a 4km foot race on Koh Lon Island. Finally, Day 4 will consist of a 1km swim and a 3km kayak race off Koh Lone, and a 20km bike race back to Patong
The local heroes are Fantastic Phuket, a foursome from the Novotel Phuket, the All Seasons Naiharn and the Mercure Patong. To see more about the team, go here. To back them, grab your credit card and go here.
