23 Mar 2023

With just a month left before the second edition of the BTC Francistown Marathon, the event organisers received even good news after the global athletics body, World Athletics officially certified the route.

A press release from the Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC), who are the main sponsor of the race, indicates that four routes have been certified, being the main 41.1km route as well as the 21.1km, 10km and 5km routes.

In an interview, BTC communications officer, Itseng Tshupoeng, said the certification meant that the marathon could now be used as a qualifier for international marathons, adding it also gave them the liberty to register as qualifiers for other marathons like the Comrades Marathon.

“We are planning to expand our banner by registering as marathon qualifiers for other renowned marathons and our intention is to start regionally, but at the moment we cannot reveal much as that is still under discussion,” she said.

Tshupoeng said the certificate would be valid for a period of five years provided they did not alter any aspect on the routes, which would otherwise require them to apply for certification afresh.

She said the process of being certified included preparing the routes, then inviting a certified World Athletics expert to examine it.

“We called an expert from South Africa since we do not have any expert locally,” she said. Tshupoeng indicated that the certificate was also something that should be celebrated as it would give athletes more options for marathons to use to qualify for international events.

“It also means that records set during the marathon would be recognised by the global athletics body and that such athletes would be in line for rewards. This then opens doors for most local athletes,” she said.

On concerns of mushrooming of racing events, with some allegedly not even registered, Tshupoeng said the issue was for the Botswana Athletics Association to handle.

She said at the moment they held the activations on a weekly basis around various places in conjunction with racing club partners like Ace Running club in Francistown and Fearless Fitness club in Gaborone.

She said they were targeting around 2 200 athletes including internationals from as far as Kenya. “As we speak individuals, clubs and corporates continue to register and we will soon announce the deadline for registration,” she said. ENDS