Foreign athletes arrive tomorrow for cross-country
At least nine countries will arrive tomorrow ahead of the Southern Africa Cross-Country Championships Malawi will host at Njamba Freedom Park in Blantyre on Saturday.
According to Athletics Association of Malawi (AAM) president Godfrey Phiri, teams from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Angola, Mauritius and Swaziland are set to check in at the Malawi Post Corporation Centre in Blantyre by tomorrow evening.
These countries are expected to bring in at least 150 athletes who will battle for glory against a 21-member Malawi squad which is currently in camp at Sports Council.
“Foreign athletes are supposed to arrive in a host country at least three days before the contest.
“We, therefore, expect Thursday to be a busy day for us because we will be running up and down welcoming our guests,” said Phiri.
He, however, said that despite having a deficit of K8 million on their K22 million budget for the international contest, all is set for the showdown on Saturday afternoon. Funding for the event has been provided by Sports Council,
“The corporate world has not come to our rescue and it seems they are not interested. But the competition still has to go on, we will do anything possible to live within our means” he said.
The competition will involve individual athletes and teams, and they will compete in 12 kilometres and eight kilometres for senior and junior men, and eight and six kilometres in the women’s categories.
This will be the third time for Malawi to host an international athletics competition. A similar event took place in 2001 at Blantyre Sports Club and in 2007 at Zomba Gymkhana Club.
