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ASA builds Soweto Marathon

ATHLETICS South Africa hopes to turn the Nedbank Soweto Marathon into one of the leading road-running events not only on the continent, but globally.

ATHLETICS South Africa hopes to turn the Nedbank Soweto Marathon into one of the leading road-running events not only on the continent, but globally.

"We are working closely with other stakeholders to stage a more exciting Soweto Marathon on November 1 and beyond," said Kakata Maponyane, ASA's deputy president.

Maponyane, who is also the director of sports at the University of Limpopo in Turfloop, identified some of the stakeholders as traffic, Soweto clubs and sponsors.

Lack of adequate water on the route and traffic congestion caused by taxi operators are two of the challenges being addressed by ASA.

"We have been inundated with enquiries from people in other parts of the country and neighbouring states who want to be part of the marathon. We want to spread the Soweto Marathon to other countries so that the event attracts some of the best runners in the world.

"Many top African runners go to big marathons like Chicago, Paris, New York, Beijing and London because the events offer big prizes.

"In Africa, the corporate world must come to the party and start channelling more funds into our activities so that our events also attract more quality runners.

"The plan is to have an incident-free marathon."

Maponyane said ASA expected 20000 people to register for the event, which had 15000 participants last year.

ASA president Leonard Chuene is a regular parti-cipant in ultra marathons and said he would definitely be among the competitors.

Phone ASA on 011-880-5800/6 for more details.

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