NETONE, the title sponsor of the newly-internationalised NetOne Albun Honde Valley Marathon, has unveiled ambitious plans to transform the event into one of the most coveted marathons in the region, starting from next year.
The second edition of the event registered significant milestones among them attracting international athletes and getting the buy-in from the community.
NetOne chief executive Raphael Mushanawani revealed the company's bigger plans.
"Firstly, we want to grow this into a regional marathon where we have people from Sadc, first responders, participate in this marathon. "And largely, we want to make sure that the local community are part of this event, they actively participate and they see the value we bring to the community in terms of tourism, in terms of some economic activity which will then take place once we bring a large number of people coming across the country and coming from the region," Mushanawani told The Sports Hub.
"First and foremost, we take cognisance of the fact that for our customers to enjoy, we need to provide quality service, so we need to improve on our quality of service, we need to make sure that every corner of this region has quality data services from the network. And plans are afoot to make sure that it happens and make sure that our community, our customers are happy with the service they provide."
Mushanawani highlighted the importance of activities such as the Honde Valley Marathon to a community.
"Yes, you know what an idle mind will do, it will tend to those things that we don't want our children, our youngsters to get involved in such as drugs, so we are of the opinion that if they participate in activities such like this, they will stay away from drugs. So in a small way, we are saying and encouraging our youth to stay away from drugs, participate so that they keep healthy, they keep fit and healthy and of course minimise, like I always say, non-communicable diseases affect our communities," he added.
After the region comes the continent according to the chief executive officer.
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"We are grateful that we are covering the region and we want to go even beyond Africa, so I'm sure in less than five years we should be able to attract international marathon runners to this event," he said.
"On the ground we make sure that we reach out to almost every other club in the country, we actually approach them and invite them and show them the benefits of participating in this marathon. I'm sure this year and coming into next year it is one of our goals to make sure that we bring everybody on board."
Albun Academy founder and director Alois Bunjira said the scenic Honde Valley mountains and terrain remains the vibrant sole selling point for the marathon.
"I think last year's event was the tonic that we needed and then we just made sure that we marketed the event well and obviously we took advantage of selling Honde Valley. It sells itself because it's beautiful, the terrain is beautiful, the most beautiful terrain and people are just excited, they are happy to be here," Bunjira said.
"You can actually see the surroundings that we are here in and people are just enjoying the fresh air, it's different, some people were actually jumping into that river, enjoying a good swim. They're mixing their town life with the rural life and everyone is enjoying it, so I think that is the tonic.
"It was exciting, you know when we heard that there were five Kenyans that were taking part and I'm sure that the Zimbabweans were saying this is going to be tough, but I was impressed I wasn't expecting Isaac Mpofu to be that fast. I've heard about him but the guy came in and I thought it was the 21km winner but they said it was 42km. The terrain is tough but he hit them, he hit the mountains, there are like four mountains he had to climb up and down but he romped home and actually overtook, almost got to the finishing point with some guys from the 21km race, so I'm impressed and thanks to the Kenyans as well, that international flavour, we needed that.
"We want more of it, we want runners to come from South Africa, from Namibia, from Mozambique, from Kenya as well we want the Ethiopians to come here. With the Ethiopians coming here, I think it's a very good advert for our marathon, they are talking, they are giving us reviews about it, I'm sure they are going to go back home, tell others that you can't miss this marathon next year.”
He added that they were lobbying to have this marathon as a qualifier for international events.
"We are expecting more international runners next year and the good thing is we are going to be fighting to get the recognition for this marathon, to actually act as a qualifier for the Two Oceans in South Africa and for the Comrades Marathon. Once we do that, we are good to go. We want international marathon runners to come here, so we are expecting that to happen next year."
Olympian Moyo won the men's 42km race ahead of Lyno Muchena and Jacob Mugomeri in second and third place respectively. In the women's 42km race Phillipa Dube, Olympian Rutendo Nyahora and Anne Chirisa took gold, silver and bronze respectively.
