Amathole Champs to stir up fast lanes

THE Amathole district school athletics Championships are set to light up the Jan Smuts Athletics Stadium this coming weekend.

The championships, taking place this Saturday, are to select a team that will represent Amathole in what can be described as a “clash of the districts” at the Eastern Cape provincial champs in March.

The event follows an interschools tournament that took place earlier this month.

Buffalo City Municipality high schools athletics vice-chairman Greg Minnie said the selected team will consist of 120-150 athletes.

Pupils from schools like Alphendale High School, Clarendon Girls High and Hudson Park High, to name a few, were selected to represent the East London region.

“The East London region has its own team, Mdantsane is holding their own inter-school tournament to select their team and King William’s Town have their own team as well,” said an enthusiastic Minnie.

Minnie added that the strongest sprinters usually came from Hudson Park, Clarendon and Stirling among others in previous years.

The championships include events such at hurdles, sprinting, long-distance tracking, long jump and high jump to name a few.

“The only two events that we will not have is pole-vault and triple jump,” said Minnie.

The district championships however do not offer any prizes but the provincial champs will see medals being awarded to the top performing athletes in every event on March 10 and 11. The top performers will then proceed to represent the Eastern Cape in the national champs.