MEDALS GALORE AT STRIDERS HALF MARATHON

MBABANE – With Striders Half Marathon, everybody is a winner!  The long-anticipated and first of its kind Manzini Striders half marathon was a great success and all 266 athletes took home silver medals, making all of them winners.

The only difference was with the champions who took home trophies, gold medals, cash prizes and Big Game Parks vouchers for veteran winners.
Manzini Striders Athletics Club made history on Saturday when they hosted their first inaugural end-of-year marathon and participants exceeded the 250 target. According to the club’s Public Relations Officer (PRO), Happiness Mthethwa, the race would be an annual event held around the same time every year. Mthethwa thanked all athletes for the impressive turn-out and for braving the challenge. She also thanked Liberty Life Insurance, the police services and paramedics for all the support and assistance throughout the event.

“Congratulations to everyone who has completed the race and enduring the curvaceous and often steep hills of the race routes. Champion or not, before me you are all winners. We all made history today and I hope that next year, we will make it even bigger and better,” said Mthethwa.

Soon after the two groups took separate routes, in the 21km category, the leading group was paired down to just five runners, consisting of four army athletes and Swazi Slojos’ sprinter Sifiso Ngcobo. Infact, the first three positions in the 21km race were not to change and the eventual champion, Nkululeko Gama, made his intentions clear and gradually pulled away from army athlete, Ntokozo Mavimbela, and was never seriously challenged again, crossing the finish line in 01:13hrs.

Meanwhile, reigning female Royal Eswatini Police Services champion athlete, Winile Mnisi, said the race was tough as it had too much hills but was grateful for the overall victory. After completing 10km, Mnisi took the initiative and made an aggressive move to split the field and in contention directly behind her was TZD’s Sithembile Nzalo, who pursued her until the finish line, clocking two seconds after Mnisi.

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