16 Jun 2016

The 2^nd edition of Gaborone half marathon is billed for Sunday hosted at Airport Junction in Gaborone with organisers targeting a milestone of 700 participants.

The event is a progression to last year’s edition which launched the new entrant that is Gaborone marathon race with about 656 participants who graced the event, and the theme of the event this year is ‘women empowerment through sports’.

Long distance enthusiasts will take part in four different categories, for the 21km race, 10km and the fun race of 5km. In addition there will be another 10km race which includes corporate challenge.

Speaking to BOPA, events executive Thapelo Radikgokong of Sports Entertainment said the event was a progressive attempt to develop what they had staged on the previous year.

She said as organisers they believed what the United Nations preached on women empowerment. She said according to the UN girls that participated in sports were more likely to attend school and participate in society.

She said they were put in a better stand to step out and take part in decision making roles which bolded their confidence as leaders of societies.

Radikgokong explained that they intended to raise awareness on abuse of women, hence they worked with Kagisano society women’s shelter on the previous edition which its theme was to raise awareness against gender based violence especially women abuse.

 Therefore she said this year they decided to align the marathon with efforts to empower women through participating in sports.

“We are in talks with engaging WASBO and IWG to assist on archiving the ultimate goal which is to empower women to participate in sports since there are two of the biggest organisations in Botswana who work with women in sports,” she said.

She also siad that the idea is to host the marathon while benchmarking on other marathon, which will enable them to improve the awareness as informed by the feedback from the participants.

She further explained the intention was to create an event that would play its role that is better placed with preferences of the participants. ENDS