Virar: With the last minute entry of Bining Lyngkhoi, a royal battle is the offing between him and defending champion Elam Singh in the men’s elite Full Marathon of the 3rd Vasai Virar Mayor’s Marathon, powered by Scechers, organized by the Visai Virar City Municipal Corporation in Vasai and Virar on Sunday, October 27. Watching the battle unfold will be India’s fastest full marathoner, Ram Singh Yadav, who had to skip the event due to injury but is present here as a special guest.

Adding luster to the event will be event ambassador Yogeshwar Dutt, Padmashree and free style bronze medal winner at the 2012 London Olympics.

Dutt, the 30-year-old Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Awardee (2011-12), who won a memorable bronze in the men's freestyle 60 kg category at the London Olympics, following up on the Gold medal he won Asian Wrestling Championship in 2012, is also gold medal winner at 2010 commonwealth Games Delhi. He will be present on Race Day along with India’s first Greco Roman World Championship bronze medal winner Sandeep Yadav and Milind Soman, marathoner and face of the event, to encourage the 15,000 plus runners that will participate in the various age category races.

The motto of the 3rd Vasai-Virar Mayor’s Marathon is to “Save the Girl Child and maintain Nature’s Balance” and to give a further fillip to the girl.

Most of the leading long distance Indian athletes have confirmed their participation for the full and half marathons, which will offer total prize money of around Rs 20 lakh, with the full marathon winner taking home Rs 2 lakh and the half marathon winners getting Rs 1 lakh each.

Besides Elam and Binning, Ashish Singh, Indrajeet Patel, Budha Ram, Arvind Kumar Yadav, Sanaton Singh and K C Ramu will be seen in action in the men’s full marathon, while the half marathon for men will feature names like defending champion Sandeep Kumar, B C Tilak, winner of the half marathon at the Mumbai Marathon 2013, Arjun Pradhan, Rahul Kumar Pal, Soji Mathew, Ajay Bir Singh and Ratti Ram Saini, among others.

The half marathon women’s field is also a powerful one, led by defending champion Kavita Raut. Also in the fray is last year’s runner-up Monika Athare, 2011 winner Kiran Tiwari, besides prominent athletes like Lalita Babbar, Swati Gadhwe, Neelam Rajput, Supriya Patil and Manisha Salunkhe, among others.