Chloride half-marathon on

Takudzwa Chitsiga Sports Reporter
ALL is set for the inaugural Exide Zimbabwe half-marathon at Mt Pleasant Sports Club with more than 500 athletes expected to take part this Saturday.

The race is sponsored by Chloride Zimbabwe who have been active in sponsoring sports codes.

They have partnered with Striders Athletics Club to host the half-marathon event.

The battery manufacturers successfully hosted the Exide Sevens Rugby series as well as sending two representatives at the Pool nationals finals last year. Chloride Zimbabwe sales and marketing officer, Pamela Nyakazeya, said they were expecting to host a successful race. “The idea came about after we managed to host a fitness and wellness campaign in December,’’ she said.

“The whole concept is coming after the campaign in December which we have decided to improve and spread it to the nation.

“Initially, the idea was for the Rugare community, where our factory is based and most of our employees come from that suburb.

“We started to influence them to take sport as an initiative to promote healthy living but we felt it was not enough.’’

Chloride Zimbabwe will once again sponsor the event, which is already oversubscribed with more than 500 athletes confirming their availability.

“We will have 5km, 10km and the 21km races for both men and women,’’ she said.

“It is unfortunate that we had to turn away some athletes who were willing to register as we had anticipated far less than 300 athletes but, after two days, we had more than 500 who had registered. “We are grateful to our partners and we believe this is going to be an annual event on the athletics calendar.

“It is part of our social cooperate responsibility and we believe this is going to be an annual event and will continue to grow with each passing year.’’ Besides sponsoring rugby, the battery manufacturers also have a vibrant darts and pool teams that play competitively as well as a social football team. Meanwhile, Steve Ngodzo was elected the new secretary-general of the Chitungwiza Professional Pool League for the 2020 season. The elections were held on Saturday in Chitungwiza.