Airtel Ghana, Headline sponsor of the Millennium Marathon, has launched a Health App for prospective participants, professional athletes and the public ahead of Accra’s premier international running event.

A statement issued in Accra by Maame Dufie Cudjoe Corporate Communications and External Affairs Manager and copied to the Ghana News Agency, said the Health App, is the company’s first in a new series of utility-based mobile innovative applications, utilises health, nutrition and fitness tips tailored to users Body Mass Index (BMI) to serve their unique health and fitness needs.

It said the App developed, tested and approved by experts is engineered to expand functionality beyond a traditional health and fitness program.

It is designed to serve as a must-have companion for all health conscious people; using a blend of utilities, including real-time updates, it added.

It noted that Airtel Health App offers runners a goal-oriented, personalised experience by giving tips for what to wear, the best time to run each day, expert training advice and motivation, plus a wealth of other health and fitness information.

“We are excited by this innovation which is powered by the user’s personal details, and a perfect health and fitness companion. With this Health App, users will find it even more attractive and fun to run, while tracking runs, reaching goals and sharing with friends.

Mr Jean Claude Domilongo Bope, Data Director at Airtel Ghana said: “At Airtel we want to change the way people experience sports. We want to motivate runners to run further, faster and more often by tracking their activities, celebrating their progress, challenging their friends and sharing runs with their entire social network.”

He added: “We’ve built a mobile app platform and architecture that blends our own trusted content with rich technology and functionality to create an innovative and intuitive multi-platform user experience.”

“This new platform enables us to optimise content across our brands and deliver tools specifically designed to help people achieve and exceed their health, fitness and lifestyle goals.

“Airtel Ghana is providing new capabilities and insights to help athletes at all levels take control of their sporting destiny,” said Head of Brands, Mr Cornelius Kakraba.

“This investment will add considerable value on our journey to deliver new world-class sports experiences to our customers.”

Airtel subscribers could activate the service by texting FITNESS to SMS short code 1541.

The main and final event of the millennium marathon which would take place on Saturday, September 5, would see a 5km run for non-professional athletes and the 21km run for professional athletes who would be vying for the ultimate trophy.

It would cover a distance of 21km from the Independence Square through the Labadi beach road along the Atlantic Ocean and back to the starting point via the National theatre.

The marathon is expected to attract thousands of runners both locally and internationally including Africa’s finest ever runner, Haile Gebreselassie.