Edwin Yeoh Tiong Chin, Senior Record Consultant of Malaysia Book of Records (left) presenting the official certificate to Kyle Choi Ki Ryong, Managing Director of Coway Malaysia (right)
Kuala Lumpur, 16 December 2021: Coway Run 2021: Run for Your Region made history as they dashed their way into the Malaysia Book of Records for the ‘Most Number of Virtual Run Tickets Sold in a Day’. Almost 10,000 Coway Run 2021 tickets were snapped up within 24 hours of its launch and marked a triumphant moment in Coway Run’s history! This achievement further solidified the importance of Coway Run to Malaysians, who looks forward to participating in this event annually. Be it physically or virtually, Coway Run has found a place in many runners’ hearts.
Organised by Coway Malaysia, Coway Run 2021 is an inter-regional virtual run that strives to promote fun, healthy living and community spirit. The run, which kicked off on 23rd September 2021 got participants off their couches at home to run anytime and anywhere to log in those kilometres. Inspired by the overwhelming enthusiasm shown by participants, the planned month-long run was extended to 31st October 2021.
“It is such an honour and accomplishment to make it into Malaysia Book of Records for having the most number of tickets sold virtually. In this current pandemic where everything is shifting into the virtual sphere, we are glad to have made a decision to turn the Coway Run into a virtual one when we could not do a physical one last year. With the virtual run, even more people can participate at their own convenience, place and time,” said Coway Malaysia managing director Kyle Choi.
He added that Coway Malaysia is grateful for the overwhelming support and is delighted to be a part of the nation’s journey towards achieving better health. This year, Coway actually ramped up ticket sales as compared to previous years in line with their plans to encourage healthier living especially during this pandemic, which saw people spending more time indoors rather than outdoors.
This year, the virtual competition stretched across every region in the country, encouraging participants to represent their hometowns for a friendly nationwide competition. The teams were split into the Northern, Central, Southern, East Coast and Borneo region, making it the perfect opportunity for runners to show other regions what they are capable of.
To make things even more interesting, participants were provided the platform to share a live map of their running route and runners were also able to collect virtual achievement badges for every 5KM milestone reached. Every step counts as participants accumulated their distance in kilometres and ran to victory with their hometown ‘team’.
Aside from running for fame, personal achievement and self-satisfaction, participants also ran for charity. A total of RM200,000 was donated by Coway Malaysia to three charities after runners nationwide collectively achieved the National Goal of 200,000KM. The three non-governmental organisations (NGOs) which benefited from this were EcoKnights, MERCY Malaysia and Reef Check Malaysia. In fact, the overly enthusiastic runners have surpassed the National Goal by clocking in a whopping 244,672KM, with the Central team being in the lead with 103,496KM.
Similar to previous years, Coway also contributed RM10 to Happy Water Project for every ticket sold. This is part of Coway Malaysia’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative to deliver clean water to impoverished Orang Asli communities nationwide.
As part of Coway Malaysia’s mission to go green, this year’s Starter Kit merchandise saw an eco-friendly twist. It comprised of items which were either recyclable or made from recycled materials. Among the items were a wooden medal made from replanted wood, run kit box made from recycled paper, a foldable bag made from recyclable canvas and others.
No run is complete without the attractive prizes! The top runners who logged in the most kilometres received a special reward each while a lucky draw contest was held for the winning regional team. A total of 21 winners were chosen at random from the winning team who won prizes worth a total of RM30,206, which included Coway products.
“I would like to thank everyone, from the participants to all at Coway Malaysia for making the Coway Run 2021 such an amazingly successful one. The response we received was truly massive and we are now all pumped up for Coway Run 2022! We are hyped up and cannot wait to see what next year’s run will have in store for us all but I promise something great is yet to come,” said Choi.
He added that it was also incredibly inspiring to see local personalities participating in this year’s run, with the likes of Bella Dally, Dini Schatzmann, Jym Chong, Mat Dan and Sean Lee. “It is always very encouraging to see people exercising and leading a healthier lifestyle and thanks to these local names, they have motivated their followers to do the same. They helped raise awareness about healthy living, the importance of exercising and the good causes being supported,” he said.
To find out more information about this year’s run, kindly visit: www.cowayrun.com.my
