The Navachab Gold Mine Half Marathon was launched for the 11th successive year yesterday with an increased sponsorship of N$345 000 in prize money being announced.
The male and female winners in the 21km half marathon will each receive N$20 000 with further prizes for the top ten finishers, while the top three in the 10km run will also get cash prizes.
At yesterday’s launch, race organiser Bethold Karumendu thanked Navachab Mine for their sponsorship, saying it was aiding them in their efforts to professionalise sport.
“We are moving towards our National Development Plan vision 2030 because our aim is that this race becomes one of Namibia’s top professional races for our elite athletes, as well as for social and economical development in terms of job creation, and in terms of putting food on the table,” he said.
“When it comes to road races in Namibia, I think we are moving in the right direction. With the assistance of Navachab, we went to the Nelson Mandela Half Marathon earlier this year, and according to the logistical organisation of the race, our planning is getting there. But our plan for the next four to five years is to get elite athletes to come and compete here in Namibia,” he added.
“Number one, we need to apply for bronze level accreditation from World Athletics for our race, and then we need to increase our prize money in order to attract elite athletes from South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, and so on to come and compete against our local athletes. If we don’t have those athletes, our own athletes will not be competitive,” he said.
“I think that is the vision that Navachab is working towards and over the next four to five years, the prize money will be increased in order to attract the top athletes. Because foreign agents will not send their elite athletes to a race where the winner will only get about N$5 000, so we are looking in the right direction and this has been made possible by the support of Navachab Gold Mine,” he added.
Karumendu also thanked the Ministry of Sport, which will provide transport for athletes from the regions to attend the race, and called on athletes to enter and start preparing for the race.
“Last year, we had about 800 athletes, but we are aiming for 2 000 athletes this year, so I call on our athletes countrywide to register and start preparing for the race,” he said.
The director of sport, Jo-Ann Manuel, thanked the sponsors for their support.
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“If you look at the big marathons in the world like the Boston Marathon or the London Marathon–they all started somewhere but look where they are today. The most important thing is that you should have sponsors, and that you already have through Navachab and the other sponsors, so now it’s up to the administrators to make sure that the event becomes what it’s destined to be and what we want it to be,” she said.
“N$20 000 is a lot of money. Some people are working every day to get that pay for a month, but yet here you are, and for just a bit more than an hour, you can get paid N$20 000. So what we are trying to say is that you can make a living out of sport and this is what we are advocating for,” she added.
Navachab also sponsored last year’s winners, Daniel Paulus and Lavinia Haitope to compete in this year’s Nelson Mandela Half Marathon where Haitope won the elite women’s race, while Paulus came second in the men’s race.
Manuel thanked Navachab and the othert sponsors for the opportunities that they are creating.
“We have so many unemployed people in this country, so we are saying let us take sport to be the catalyst so that we cut the unemployment rate by half,” she said.
“As a ministry, we are deeply indebted to Navachab Mine for sticking with us for 11 years, and we hope we will remain partners for many more years to come. We also thank all the other partners for the opportunities that they are creating–it might not be a lot in monetary terms, but by creating that opportunity, we can now maybe discover another Lavinia Haitope or another Christine Mboma, so we thank you very much.”
