Omaruru Street Mile hoping to host 420 athletes

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The Omaruru Street Mile will be making its return next month after an absence of two years due to COVID-19 restrictions that were put in place in the country.

The race will take place in the town of Omaruru on 15 October 2022, with over 400 athletes expected to compete in the 1.6-kilometre race, which combines both speed and road race endurance.

Event organizer, Berthold Karumendu, told Nampa on Wednesday that at the moment everything is going well on the ground and they expect to host 420 athletes from all over Namibia.

“We will be awarding prizes from first to the seventh position in the senior men and women’s categories, while all the other races will only see the top five being rewarded,” Karumendu said.

He added that the organiser is this year planning on hosting a wheelchair race with the winners also walking away with a reward.

“We want to have a wheelchair race for T53-54 and these are athletes who are classified and have original racing chairs. We don’t want people to just come with their normal wheelchairs that are not meant for racing to come to compete at this event,” he said, adding that the wheelchair racing winner will walk away with prize money of N.dollars 3000.

Karumendu also said that the incentives won at this event will only be improved when the race turns 10 years old next year.

The Omaruru Street Mile currently has a course record of 04 minutes and 06 seconds. Kefas Kondjashili and Lavinia Haitope are three times senior women’s and men’s defending champions.

During this year’s event, participants will compete in different categories, which are primary schools 10-13 years boys and girls, junior women and men aged 14-19, veteran women and men aged between 40-49 years, the master’s men and women race for those 50 and over, plus the senior men and women (20-39 years) race.

The senior men’s and women’s category winners will walk away with N.dollars 5000 each, while the junior, and veteran category winners will pocket 3000. The master and primary school winner will each pocket N.dollars 1.500.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency