ELITE marathon runners, including serial winner Moses Tarakinyu, are part of the cast that is expected to spice up the second edition of the Musabvunda Sports Festival at the Reserve Bank Club on Saturday.
The annual event, which is set to attract a huge crowd, has also gone international as athletes from Zambia will take part in various competitions including half marathon and power lifting.
Some of the runners that have registered for the big event include Prosper Mutirwa, Tawanda Bvunzawabaya, Blessing Maison, Tendai Zimuto and Melody Chikonzi.
Top marathon clubs like Nedbank, Black Rhinos and Zimbabwe Republic Police have also registered their athletes.
Kudzai Pasipanodya of Musabvunda Fitness said they are expecting over 2 000 participants.
“We are expecting the event to be lit. We have between 2 500 and 3 000 participants at this year’s event and it’s going to big,” said Pasipanodya.
The sports festival comes at a time Musabvunda Fitness has staked its claim in local marathon. They have partnered a number of institutions including the Airforce of Zimbabwe in organizing marathon events.
“The reason why we are anticipating big numbers is because this year’s event is not all about fitness alone, but we have music and other sports.
“We will be having marathon, power-lifting challenge war, fitness wars, aerobics, and tug of war,” said Pasipanodya.
He added: “We have also partnered with World Fitness Federation, Power-Lifting Federation and National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe.
“We have partnered the sporting associations so that they lead us on the regulation part of athletes and also to give them a platform to showcase their talents.”
Last year’s sports festival was attended by thousands of people and a lot more are expected on Saturday.
“There are a lot of lessons that we learnt from last year’s event and there is an improvement in the activities that we have organised this year especially on the aspect of what needs to be done for athletes,” said Pasipanodya.
Marathon is slowly gaining traction in the country as a number of competitions have been held this year, including the Tanganda Half Marathon and the Econet Victoria Falls marathon. And Musabvunda Fitness has also been a major player.
“The main reason why we have had a surge in numbers this year is that we put maximum effort in our things; we do our things thoroughly.
“Marathon is taking a claim in the sporting space.
“That is what we want to see and not only that, but to make sure that the other so called minority sports are getting their space.
“As for the marathon, we are alive to the fact that to some this is a source of livelihood hence the more we have the marathon events the more we are playing a part in the empowering our people, while we also set the stage for our athletes to prepare for international events,” said Pasipanodya.
Herald
