The world’s largest corporate running event achieved another milestone following work on a beautiful South American Thursday evening.

With the completion of the debut event in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge Series is now in all six inhabited continents. It took the Series exactly 46 years from its debut in 1977 to circle the globe.

For the record, the 3.5-mile (5.6km) road race took off at precisely 7 p.m. local time at Parque Micaela Bastidas, with a registered crowd of 2,167 participants from 67 companies. Buenos Aires became the third expansion market to join the Corporate Challenge Series in 2022, following Philadelphia (October 6, 1,018 entrants) and Dallas-Fort Worth (October 19, 1,228).

“We are very happy to have held the first edition of the Corporate Challenge in Buenos Aires,” said Facundo Gómez Minujín, President of J.P. Morgan for Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia. "It was a success, all the participants enjoyed the event, and they valued having a different space to share with their colleagues and connect with partners, customers, suppliers and other business stakeholders.”

The participating companies were from a diverse group of industries that reflected Buenos Aires’ eclectic business landscape.  The 10 largest companies in terms of entries were event owner and operator J.P. Morgan (1,120 entrants), PwC (110), MetroGas (55), Mediapro (42), Petroquimica Comodoro Rivadavia (41), Exxon Mobil (36), Bruchou & Funes de Rioja (36), Banco Nación (34), Grupo Albanesi (31), and Roemmers (30).

Buenos Aires became one of seven markets in the current J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge Series to join the Series this millennium. Beyond Philadelphia and Dallas Fort-Worth joining earlier this year, Shanghai, China came aboard in 2011, Johannesburg, South Africa and Singapore in 2004, and Sydney, Australia in 2000.

Sydney (Australia), Johannesburg (South Africa), and Singapore (Asia) were the first Corporate Challenges in their respective continents. Europe joined the Series with London in 1986.

The Corporate Challenge’s South American debut was delayed an additional two years by the COVID pandemic. The Corporate Challenge was poised to run in Buenos Aires in November, 2020, but sensibly took that year and 2021 off. Local businesses warmed up for the Corporate Challenge during the break with a Virtual event.

The first winners over the 3.5-mile course in the newest Corporate Challenge city and continent were Guillermo White, representing Exxon Mobil, in the men’s division with a finishing time of 19:05 (5:27 pace) and Insfran of Laboratorios Richmond in the women’s division with a time of 22:37 (6:28 pace).

The J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge Buenos Aires also had a third category of individual finishers for the first time. Employees from all companies could register as non-binary and those specific entrants are listed in the Series Leaderboard and are eligible to score in their company’s mixed team results.

The JPMorgan Chase Foundation will donate in celebration of the debut Corporate Challenge in Buenos Aires to Cooperadora del Hospital de Ninos, a not-for-profit organization that was founded over 60 years ago to collaborate exclusively with Hospital de Ninos Ricardo Gutierrez. The organization is guided by the same values that have given rise to it: Vocation for serving children and their families; transparency and, above all, commitment to health and childhood.

Buenos Aires is the penultimate event of the 2022 J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge Series. The finale will be next week, November 10, in Singapore, with 6,026 employees entered.