Sell-out trend continues in 2009

Johannesburg, 12 February 2009 — The first J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge® event of calendar year 2009 has reached capacity.

Officials of the Johannesburg J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge — scheduled for Thursday, 5 March — announced today that entries have sold out. More than 11,800 participants from over 350 companies have entered the 5.6-kilometre team road race at the venerable Wanderers Club.

Helping boost the early sellout were entries from 171 South African companies that are competing in the race for the first time.

The sellout continues a tradition of support in Johannesburg, as well as across the world's most popular corporate running series, which attracted a record 242,000 entries on five continents in 2008. In Johannesburg, the Corporate Challenge has now been a sellout for five consecutive years. The Johannesburg event has become an occasion for not only fast times and an exciting post-race concert, but a combination of competition and camaraderie embraced by the corporate community in South Africa.

With this gathering, 15 of the last 26 Corporate Challenge events worldwide — dating back to 2006 — have reached full capacity.

Begun in 1977 with a single race in New York 's Central Park that attracted 200 entrants, the Corporate Challenge is celebrating its 33rd season. The 2009 season of the worldwide Series began last November in Sydney, Australia. After its stop in Johannesburg, the Series continues on 16 April in Singapore, where entries have reached capacity for three straight years and the race has doubled in size since its debut in 2004.

The capacity event in Johannesburg benefits the Girls & Boys Town.

The Series has its first American stop in 2009 on May 21 in Chicago 's Grant Park, where 23,603 took part in 2008.