Early alarm call for EURETINA Race participants

Competitors set off at the start of Retina Race 2019 At an hour when most Parisians were still curled up comfortably under their duvets, a sizeable group of dedicated runners turned out in the pre-dawn darkness in Paris to support this year’s Retina Race in aid of ORBIS. Organised by EURETINA and sponsored by Novartis, the eighth annual Retina Race took place over five kilometres on a beautiful circuit around the Bois de Boulogne, one of Paris’ celebrated greenbelt areas. Drawn from the assorted ranks of ophthalmologists, scientists and exhibitors in town to attend the 19th Euretina Congress, 60 runners of all ages took part in the race, cheered on by a small but enthusiastic crowd of colleagues, friends and family members. After some gentle stretching and light refreshments, the runners were soon building up a sweat as they wound their way through the designated course. Individual performance times for all contestants were recorded electronically, with gold, silver and bronze medals awarded to the top three male and female runners. Although the emphasis of the Retina Race is firmly on the fun aspect of participating and raising money for charity, the runners were still keen to improve on personal best times and perhaps earn a place on the winner’s podium. Line Lyngdorf from Denmark was the fastest female competitor, completing the 5K in a very respectable time of just over 27 minutes. Second and third places went to Zuzana Hradcova from the Czech Republic and Maria Vittoria Cicinelli from Italy. The first male competitor past the winning post was Miika Hernelahti from Finland with a time of just under 22 minutes, followed by Julien Bullet and Tremeur Guillaumie both from France. All money raised from the race will go to Orbis to finance their much-needed prevention of blindness programmes in the developing world. Emma Hett, Corporate Partnerships Manager with Orbis expressed appreciation to all the participants for making the effort to raise money for such a worthy cause. Key race organiser Stephane Wolf also thanked everyone who took part in the race and said he hoped to see even more people taking part next year when the 20th EURETINA Congress will be held in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Tags: retina