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Manipal : India’s only ultra-runner, Satish Gujaran of Katapady in Udupi, formally inaugurated the Manipal Academy of Higher Education sports competitions for 2019-20 at the Dr TMA Pai auditorium here on Thursday.  He is the only Indian to finish 10 consecutive Comrades Marathon,held in South Africa annually, and awarded the “Green Number” by Comrades Marathon Association at the 2019 Marathon.

The Inter-Institution competitions got under way with the chess tournament hosted by Manipal Institute of Technology. Between now and the next semester, competitions in all the games will be held. While giving an overview of the competitions, MAHE Sports Council Secretary, Dr Vinod Nayak also spoke about the All India Inter-University Squash tournament for women and South Zone Inter-Varsity Badminton to be hosted by the University.

Dr HS Ballal, Pro Chancellor MAHE presided over the function and Dr Poornima Baliga, Pro Vice Chancellor, Health Sciences, was the guest of honour. Also present were Dr Srikanth Rao Director, MIT and Sridhar Director Sports MIT. Joint Secretary Sports Council, Shobha ME presented the programme.

Satish while addressing the students encouraged them to take up sports and spoke about his experiences in life. He said that he was never interested in sports, was a chain smoker and liked to party, till one day a friend, a runner advised him to start running. Which he did and today, despite being in his mid-50s, he is still running. “I gave up on smoking and binge no more,” he said.

Satish in his 15 years of running has completed 28 full marathons and as many half marathons.  Interestingly, he prefers running to the venue of the marathon from wherever he is staying. So he ran from Mumbai to Surat for the Surat marathon, Vashi to Satara for the Satara marathon, Pune to Aurangabad for the Aurangabad marathon and so on. He has agreed to take part in the Manipal Marathon in February next year.