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Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
THE National Railways of Zimbabwe will on Saturday hold the inaugural NRZ Rail-Trail Annual Charity Half Marathon whose objective is to commemorate the coming of the first train to Zimbabwe 121 years ago.
NRZ public relations manager, Nyasha Maravanyika said the race, which starts and ends at Raylton Sports Club is aimed at celebrating the arrival of the first train in Zimbabwe on 4 November 1897 from Vryburg, South Africa through Botswana.
“We are having the NRZ Rail-Track Annual Charity Half Marathon on Saturday. This is the inaugural edition and we are hoping to have it as an annual event. Not many people know that the first train came to Zimbabwe on 4 November 1897 from Vryburg, South Africa via Botswana. We are celebrating the coming of the first train with the Zimbabwean community,’’ Maravanyika said.
NRZ are also looking to raise funds for their community social responsibility programmes, which include a school in Nyamandlovu, charity organisations as well as chronic disease patients.
“We as NRZ, we run corporate responsibility programmes, we are simply inviting the community to assist us. We have a school in Nyamandlovu, Deli Primary, they have asked us to assist them, while we have assisted them before we cannot do it on our own. We have charity organisations, we need to assist them. We also have cancer and chronic disease patients that need our assistance. Registration fees are going community to community development,’’ he said.
According to the NRZ spokesperson, the first male and female athletes to cross the finish line will pocket $2 000 each with $1 000 for second place while those in third spot will get a $500 reward. There are also prizes for wheelchair athletes and juniors. To encourage NRZ employees to take part in the race, there are also prizes for the first male and female NRZ members of staff to cross the line.
Registration will be conducted on Thursday and Friday at Raylton Sports Club as well as the NRZ headquarters. Seniors are required to pay $15 while the registration fee for juniors is $5. Races on offer are the 21km, 10km, 5km and 1km walk.
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Bongani Ndlovu