16 Oct 2022

 BOTESSA is happy with the turn up of participants at a 10-kilometre trial run for the upcoming Run Maun Marathon grand finale billed for October 29.
In an interview, BOTESSA vice president, Tebogo Kgari, said the 10km activation run was a success given that people attended in large numbers to familiarise themselves with the route ahead of the final.

Kgari said the route for the trial would be the same one on October 29.

The marathon, he said, would attract elite and recreational athletes under the categories: 42.2km, 21, 10 and 5km fun run.

He added that longer routes would traverse Maun new mall, airport, Sedie, Matlapana roundabout, Engen traffic lights, Caltex traffic lights and to Maun Lodge and back to Maun Sport Complex.

“Since this is the first edition of Run Maun, we have encountered some challenges where a few people registered late towards the October 16 deadline,” he said.

On one hand, he indicated that they were working closely with Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) to ensure that they met all marathon standards.

Meanwhile, he said the 42.2km winner would walk away with P15 000 while those in positions two and three would pocket P10 000 and P7 000 respectively.

He added that the 21km champion would cash P6 000 while positions two and three would get P4 000 and P3 000 respectively. The 10km winner would scoop P2 000 while prize money for positions two and three would be P1 000 and P750 respectively.

Furthermore, Kgari said their aim was to make the Run Maun marathon an annual event owing to the village’s status as a tourism destination.

He said they had a target of 1 500 participants, but only 400 had registered.

“It is possible though that there were more people who had shown interest but yet to pay the registration fee to be approved as participants,” he said.

Kgari also acknowledged some hiccups in logistics and stakeholder engagement in Maun due to the fact that the BOTESSA office was organising the event from Gaborone.

However, he said they would, in future liaise extensively with other stakeholders and potential sponsors to make the marathon even bigger. ENDS