BOINEELO RANKWAILA
The long awaited Gaborone International Meet (GIM) which is organized by Sports View Runners Club will take place on the 29’th of April 2017 at the National Stadium. The return of the meet comes after a gap year of 2016 and has now re-branded from Sports View International meet to Gaborone International Meet.
The anticipated competition from the meet will give international athletes ammunition to push the locals to qualify for various major events such as, IAAF Youth Championships: Nairobi 12 – 16th July 2017 and IAAF World Athletics Championships; London 4th – 13th August 2017 just to mention a few. Giving the key note address to the media recently, the chairman of the Sports View Runners Club Glody Dube emphasized that the meet will feature both local and international athletes.
“The meet is increasingly attracting athletes worldwide and this is confirmed by the countries who already have confirmed their participation South Africa, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho and Namibia. The closing date for confirmation is 23rd April 2017; therefore, through extended invitations helped by BAA, we are expecting even more countries to confirm their participation” said Dube.
The meet organizers continue to innovate the competition as they have made arrangements that for the first time since its existence this year the event will also host Special Olympic races in 100m
with a view to promote sport for people living with disabilities.
This reporter has an exclusive interviews with 400m sprinters Isacc Makwala and Pako Seribe about the meet. Makwala indicated that the meet events comes at a good time when all athletes globally are sweating toward a goal of reaching the World Championships and urged all local athletes to embrace the meet and grow the local brand.
Seribe expressed his excitement for the meet after his season was interrupted by a ligament tear injury, “I have forgotten about last year already, I enter this season with my head held high. The meet is one of the biggest in the calender and its prior to the Nationals so for me these are good lined up competitions to keep the momentum up and obviously the ultimate goal is to wear my national colors at the World Championships,” said Seribe.
In his closing remarks Dube stressed that this will be a very competitive and professional competition as they have benchmarked with international standards, he said that after reviewing the races of the past few years, taking note the growth of the meet, they decided that this would be ideal to ensure a smoother and safer event for everyone. This year the host has invited an Anti- Doping Agency through the help of BNOC.