25 Jul 2017

Gaborone City will on September 16 host the first ever Annual Gaborone City Mayor’s Marathon.

Speaking in a press conference to launch the marathon, the City’s Mayor, Mr Kagiso Thutlwe said in order to keep up with the pace of seeing Gaborone being one of the fastest growing cities in Africa ,the city has come up with the initiative with a view to energise it in areas such as health and wellness, boosting tourism, employment, infrastructure development, economic growth as well as uniting people.

Mr Thutlwe said the marathon will be divided into three categories of 42km, 10km and 5km races. He said the initial target for this year’s race is 10 000 participants with some running professional categories, while others will be running for fun and unity.

The mayor also said all proceeds from the marathon will be used to develop the city, improve the lives of the people and develop a plan beneficial to the City of Gaborone.

“The whole idea is for the development of the city and provision of services to the people of Gaborone,” he said.

He called on all businesses to support the initiative as well as encourage their staff members to sign up for the marathon.

He further said they have engaged all stakeholders in the sporting industry in Botswana and internationally.

“I have taken it upon myself as the sitting mayor to invite other mayors from the region and international athletes to be part of this initiative,” he said.

The marathon will be powered by Choppies Group of Companies as a gold sponsor with the value of P500 000 which will go into covering prize money and key operational processes.

For his part, Choppies CEO, Ramachandran Ottappathu said through the partnership Choppies wants to ensure that during Thutlwe’s mayorship, Gaborone becomes again the fastest growing city in the world.

First prize winner for the 42km race will pocket P50 000, second prize P30 000 and the third prize winner will go home with P20 000, whilst the 10km race winners will take home P20 000, P10 000 and P5 000 for the first, second and third prices respectively.

All participants for the 5km race will be given medals of participation. Registration forms for the marathon are available in all Choppies stores in Gaborone, all Liquorama stores, all JB Sports outlets, Main Mall Shell Filling station, Gaborone City Council and the National stadium. ENDS