Ramatsiyi Moholoa

Ramatsiyi Moholoa

Former South African Marathon king Daniel Radebe intends visiting schools in Moletjie and surrounding areas to lobby support for the 15km Mampodi road race.

The event will take place on March 24 and not January 13 as was announced earlier to give Radebe enough time to inform the locals about the importance of the race.

"I will be going to primary and high schools in Moletjie and Seshego as from next week when they reopen for the 2007 season," said Radebe yesterday.

"I thought it would be a good idea to start with the schools because I'm targeting the pupils as part of my vision to develop the sport in this area.

"We won't be able to produce quality athletes in the Seshego and Moletjie areas if we do not focus on the school-going children.

"I came up with the idea of staging a 15km road race after realising that the area is no longer producing top athletes. There were a lot of athletics competitions when some of us were growin up. We also had many brothers running for the mines where they were doing well.

"The success of people such as Vincent Maleka, David and Rammy Tsebe at national level inspired some of us to pursue a career in athletics."

Radebe said he was grateful for the support he received from Limpopo Athletics, which is led by University of Limpopo sports director Kakata Maponyane. Radebe said the race would start in Mmotong wa Perekisi and end in Moletjie Moshate.