The scholarship was handed over to the retired athlete yesterday during the first edition of the UB marathon. Makwala was recognised for his contribution to sport development in the country.
Before receiving the scholarship, Makwala showcased his famous solo run to the community that descended on the UB stadium. The Local Organising Committee (LOC) chairperson, Dr Tshepang Tshube told Sport Monitor that it is an open scholarship and the university will do its best to make sure that Makwala is educated.
“We are doing that intentionally because when athletes retire from sport a lot of times they have nothing to do but if he goes to school he will be a better person. He has a lot of experience but he needs knowledge to contextualise that experience to be impactful to him, Botswana athletes, the Olympic Committee and the Sport Commission,” he said.
When asked why Amantle Montsho was left out, Tshube said Makwala has been an athlete for almost 15 years and he was training at UB stadium. “This is his training base and he belongs to us.
He is not in our club but we have hosted him for more 10 years. Justice Dipeba is his coach and I authored his biography. We are not turning a blind eye that Amantle might need something like this but we know that no long ago there were efforts to have this for her.
We can honour her next year,” Tshube said. Meanwhile, Tshube said they registered 2,000 runners for the marathon including international runners. “We pulled it off and we are happy how it went. We worked with the anti-doping agency and they did the tests for free. We had budgeted P184,000 for prize monies and we learnt a lot from the event.
For us to be effective we need a strong functional system, people need to be at water points on time, emergency services need to be on time,” he said. Kenyans dominated the marathon, scooping the men’s and women’s races.
Sheilah Saina emerged a winner in the women’s 42.2km with a time of 2:44.02 followed by locals, Boikhutso Bakha with a time of 2:57.35 and Kitsiso Joseph with a time of 3:07.46. The men’s champion in the 42.2km is Peter Kipkemei Limo who was making his full marathon debut and stopped the clock at 2:20.06. Dikgakgamatso Modisagape arrived in the second position bringing home 2:37.39 and Sandile Theo was third in 3:28.25. Limo said he is normally a half marathon runner and this time around he decided to go full distance. “I was with the rest of the pack until 15km and from there I decided to push and nobody was ready to give me a challenge. You realise that back home I train in high altitude so when I ran here it became very easy,” he said. For her part, Saina said she was running the marathon after running in Maun, Boteti and Phikwe.
“I was disqualified in Phikwe because I got lost but that did not demoralise me from competing in Botswana. I clocked my Personal Best (Pb) in my first race and today I clocked another Pb,” she said. Another athlete, Modisagape of BDF Athletics Club said the challenge he is facing is lack of support. “I was running with torn shoes because I cannot afford to buy a new pair.
This is a risk but there is nothing I can do because this is my bread and butter,” he said. Prize monies: Men and women: 42,2km (P20,000), number two (P10,000) and number three (P6,000.) The remaining three gets P1,000 each. Men and women: 21.1km (P10,000), number two: P6,000 and number three gets P3,000.
