Chronicle Editor
Ngqwele Dube, Sports Correspondent
REGISTRATION for the Old Mutual Nkulumane Half Marathon closed yesterday (Saturday) with athletes only having the option of entering the race online.
This year’s race is scheduled to be held for next Sunday and organisers introduced limits to the number of entries to ensure a superb experience for the runners.
Bulawayo Athletics Board chairman, Manuel Mpofu said registration opened on 10 May and closed yesterday midnight. He said they have put a cap of 1 000 runners.
“There were no paper forms this year with athletes only registering online and we will only be able to verify the numbers after the close of registration on Saturday (25 May)
“We are limiting participation in the 21km race to 300 runners which is the same number for the 10km event while we will only allow 400 runners to take part in the 5km race.
“Organisers felt it would be prudent to limit the numbers to ensure those taking part have a great experience and there are no organisational failures. We don’t want people to register then fail to get t-shirts or we have a shortage of water for the athletes,” he said.
The prizes for the three half-marathon categories (open men and women and wheelchair) have been set at $1 000 for the winners, $800 for the second-placed athletes and $600 for number three. South African timing company, FinishTime has also been enlisted to provide electronic timing for the second year running.
Mpofu said they have rectified the boob that saw the half marathon participants running 19km last year instead of 21km and have ensure the distance is truly 21km.
“We took note of the mistake we made in measuring the course and this year we have fixed that issue but we have not changed the course of the race. The routes for the other races remain the same,” he said.
Last year it was Cansious Nyamutsita of Mr Pace Athletics Club who clinched the inaugural Half Marathon men’s race in a time of 01:00:14 and was followed closely by Misheck Sithole in 1 hour 38 seconds while in the ladies category it was Bertha Chikanga who emerged first in 1 hour eight minutes, with Rudo Chimondera coming second in 1 hour 10 minutes.
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