Marathon National Championships set for February
Local athletics’ national marathon championship, the Rössing Marathon, will take place in Swakopmund at the Vineta North Sports Field on 10 February. The event will include two running events namely, the 42.2 kilometre full marathon, and the shorter 10 km run.
The organisors of the event this week said, for the first time in the event’s 27-year history a half-marathon, 21 km will also be hosted this year.
The first prize for the marathon is N$10,000 each for the men’s and ladies open winners, with cash prizes for runners finishing second (N$5000), third (N$2000), fourth (N$1000) and fifth (N$500) in the marathon – the day’s main event. An extra N$1000 cash bonus is up for grabs should the marathon records be broken in the open categories.
The first prize for the half-marathon winners is N$3000 each for the men’s and ladies open winners. It is expected that the half-marathon will become a popular event on the local athletics circuit.
The 10km Uranium Relay for Erongo mine workers and the 5km Fun Walk, with interesting prizes in various categories, are popular events with proceeds collected in both events going to the Cancer Association of Namibia (CAN) for the fight against cancer.
The marathon and half-marathon starts at 07:00. The 10km run starts at 07:15 and the 5km Fun Walk and Uranium Relay at 09:00. Registration is on Friday, 9 February from 18:00 to 21:00 at the Vineta North Sports Field. Entry forms and more information are available on the Rössing website.
Caption: Rössing Marathon winners 2017, Paulus Iiyambo and Helalia Johannes.
