Running blindfolded for charity

TWO BRITISH soldiers are expected to complete a 240 kilometre charity run blindfolded while passing a football to each other, as a tribute to the memory 11 comrades who died in Iraq.

Sergeants Darren Mortimer and Mark Welch began their run from Dhekelia to Troodos on Thursday and started their run back to the SBA yesterday, blindfolded.

The two are running in temperatures well over 34 degrees Celsius and escorted by an SBA cruiser in which they will be collecting donations.

“I knew eight of the soldiers killed in Iraq,” Mortimer said.

“Six of them were in my old unit, they were all friends,” he added.

“Half the money will be given to a charity,” Welch said.

“That’s why we are returning some of the money to the island, so anyone who gives, actually gives to his own community also.”

The ball was donated by local football clubs APOEL and Anorthosis, while Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool, Manchester City, and Leicester City have sent various products to be sold at an auction.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.