MUMBAI: The latest buzzword among the Mumbai gliteratti and the janta is fitness, courtesy the Standard Chartered Mumbai International Marathon scheduled for this Sunday.

National pubcaster Doordarshan, ESPN and Star Sports are all geared up to cash on it. DD, ESPN and Star Sports will air live telecast of the event scheduled to be held at Mumbai on 15 February, 2004 from 7 to 11 am.

Besides the live telecast, ESS will sponsor a "Mumbai Bhago, London Dheko" contest to promote the marathon. The registered users have to log on the ESS website and answer a question. The lucky winner will bag a trip for two to London.

According to media reports, the marathon organised by Standard Chartered and its medical partner, the Asian Heart Institute has over 20,000 runners participating. While the full and half marathon will begin at 7:15 am, the dream run will be flagged off at 9:45 am.

The organisers will be stationing 50 volunteers, to assist the runners, at the start and finish base station. Seven aid stations are being set up at 'D' road near Churchgate station, Chowpatty, Hughes road before the Kemp's Corner flyover, Haji Ali, Nehru Centre, Worli sea face and the Air India building. Besides several doctors, nurses and physiotherapists will be present at various points on the route.

The marathon list boasts celebrity participants including industrialist Anil Ambani and actor Rahul Bose, yesteryear filmstar Tanuja, former sheriff Bakul Patel and film star Jackie Shroff. Other names like Mandira Bedi, Dino Morea, Farhan Akhtar, Tanisha Mukherji, Tara Sharma, MTV VJ Aditya, Sita Thompson, Moshe Shek, Pratichee Mohapatra, John Abraham and sportspersons like Paul Tergat, Kapil Dev, Dilip Vengsarkar, and Sanjay Manjrekar are also said to be participating.