Runners leave for Durban Marathon

HEAD of the national event coaches for the middle and long-distance runners, Benson Chauke, has rallied behind the Zimbabwean athletes that will compete in the Durban Marathon as they seek qualification times for the World Championships.

Long-distance runners Munyaradzi Jari and Isaac Mpofu are scheduled to leave today for South Africa where they will compete in the Durban Marathon on Sunday.

The Zimbabwe Republic Police duo is chasing for the World Athletic Championships qualification. The global meet is due to take place from July 15 to July 24 in Oregon, United States.

The qualifying time for men’s marathon is 2 hours 11 minutes 30 seconds.

Also traveling to South Africa are Black Rhinos Athletics Club athletes Wellington Varevi, Tendai Zimuto and Moses Charakinyu who are going to run the Open 10km that will be held simultaneously with the 42km race.

The Durban Marathon is also doubling as the Athletics South Africa National Championships.

\And a star-studded field is set to turn up for the event.

The Durban Marathon will start at 6am while the Open 10km race gets underway at 6:30pm.

“This is the only qualifying window left to qualify for World Championships in Oregon and we have two athletes competing in that race. If they qualify they will go to the World Championships.

‘’ We have three other athletes who are going to South Africa. It’s a first of this kind and an opportunity for us to assess the athletes and the merits of the training camp we held in Nyanga in February.

“The potential is there, we have the athletes, who are dedicated. We have a group of hard-working focused athletes, so we are going to asses where they are,” said Chauke.

Chauke was recently appointed head of national event coaches’ team for middle and long-distance runners.

Together with other coaches, that include Cephas Pasipamire who is traveling with the athletes’ today as their coach, they were in charge of a 15-member-team of athletes that went for a two-week training camp in Vumba in February.

The camp was part of a programme by the National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe to try and assist athletes with the potential to qualify for major events such as the World Athletics Championships and the Olympics.

Zimbabwe usually have marathon runners qualifying for the Olympics but it was a different case for Tokyo 2020 Games, as local athletes failed to qualify.

The qualifying time was 2 hours 11 minutes 30seconds for men and 2 hours 29 minutes 30 seconds for women.

These are the same qualifying standards for the forthcoming World Championships.