04 Jun 2014

The second Mantheng Marathon is scheduled is billed for Sefhare on July 12. 

The event organiser, Kese Ditsabatho, said in an interview that there would be two categories being a public walk of 10 km and a half marathon of 21.1 km. He pointed out that the first marathon began at Borotsi through Mathako village to Ditshoswaneng lands road but this year it would start in Sefhare.

Ditsabatho stated that this year they changed the routes from the ones used in 2013 because after their evaluation, participants indicated had that running along a gravel road was disruptive hence they intended using tarred road this year.

“The data is being collected to be used and measure the wavelength of the distance by Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) to confirm the distance accuracy of 21.1 km and 10 km respectively,” he said.

Ditsabatho said, last year, they only had 90 participants but this year they were anticipating hosting approximately 200 participants mainly youth in both open categories and they had introduced trophies, medals and some prize money to boost morale and inspire participants.

He explained that the aims of the event included assisting athletes attain BAA standards, recruit potential long race runners to represent the constituency in future and balancing the equilibrium point and distribution of resources in sports arena among others.

As a way of promoting interaction between community and service providers, Ditsabatho said there would be some stalls particularly by government departments and other stakeholders. He said Botswana Police Service escort team, first aid and hospital personnel were also invited. 

Moreover, the organiser indicated that registration was ongoing with P30 for marathon runners and P20 for public walk participants. The money, he said would be used for administration purposes.

Ditsabatho further said there would also be a raffle in order to encourage community participation. The event would start at 7 a.m. He cited lack of finance as one of the challenges they were facing.

He further highlighted that they intended to register a runners club under the name, Mantheng runners club in order to cater for short race runners next year. ENDS