{"id":24557,"date":"2023-03-24T20:24:29","date_gmt":"2023-03-24T20:24:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/world-athletics-certifies-francistown-marathon"},"modified":"2023-03-25T04:16:54","modified_gmt":"2023-03-25T04:16:54","slug":"world-athletics-certifies-francistown-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/world-athletics-certifies-francistown-marathon","title":{"rendered":"WORLD ATHLETICS CERTIFIES FRANCISTOWN MARATHON"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Botswana. <\/strong><\/span><b>With just a month left before the second edition of the BTC Francistown Marathon, the event organisers received even good news after the global athletics body, World Athletics officially certified the route.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>A press release from the Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC), who are the main sponsor of the race, indicates that four routes have been certified, being the main 41.1km route as well as the 21.1km, 10km and 5km routes.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview, BTC communications officer, Itseng Tshupoeng, said the certification meant that the marathon could now be used as a qualifier for international marathons, adding it also gave them the liberty to register as qualifiers for other marathons like the Comrades Marathon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are planning to expand our banner by registering as marathon qualifiers for other renowned marathons and our intention is to start regionally, but at the moment we cannot reveal much as that is still under discussion,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Tshupoeng said the certificate would be valid for a period of five years provided they did not alter any aspect on the routes, which would otherwise require them to apply for certification afresh.<\/p>\n<p>She said the process of being certified included preparing the routes, then inviting a certified World Athletics expert to examine it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe called an expert from South Africa since we do not have any expert locally,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Tshupoeng indicated that the certificate was also something that should be celebrated as it would give athletes more options for marathons to use to qualify for international events.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt also means that records set during the marathon would be recognised by the global athletics body and that such athletes would be in line for rewards.<\/p>\n<p>This then opens doors for most local athletes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>On concerns of mushrooming of racing events, with some allegedly not even registered, Tshupoeng said the issue was for the Botswana Athletics Association to handle.<\/p>\n<p>She said at the moment they held the activations on a weekly basis around various places in conjunction with racing club partners like Ace Running club in Francistown and Fearless Fitness club in Gaborone.<\/p>\n<p>She said they were targeting around 2 200 athletes including internationals from as far as Kenya.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs we speak individuals, clubs and corporates continue to register and we will soon announce the deadline for registration,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\">Botswana<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Botswana. With just a month left before the second edition of the BTC Francistown Marathon, the event organisers received even good news after the global athletics body, World Athletics officially certified the route. A press release from the Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC), who are the main sponsor of the race, indicates that four [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":24556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17],"tags":[233,237,234],"class_list":["post-24557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-botswana","tag-botswana"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>WORLD ATHLETICS CERTIFIES FRANCISTOWN MARATHON - Botswana<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With just a month left before the second edition of the BTC Francistown Marathon, the event organisers received even ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/world-athletics-certifies-francistown-marathon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"WORLD ATHLETICS CERTIFIES FRANCISTOWN MARATHON\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With just a month left before the second edition of the BTC Francistown Marathon, the event organisers received even ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/world-athletics-certifies-francistown-marathon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Botswana\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-03-24T20:24:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-03-25T04:16:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2023\/03\/postQueueImg_1679672901.51.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/world-athletics-certifies-francistown-marathon#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/world-athletics-certifies-francistown-marathon\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"WORLD ATHLETICS CERTIFIES FRANCISTOWN MARATHON\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-03-24T20:24:29+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-03-25T04:16:54+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/world-athletics-certifies-francistown-marathon\"},\"wordCount\":399,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/world-athletics-certifies-francistown-marathon#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2023\/03\/postQueueImg_1679672901.51.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Botswana\",\"Botswana\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/world-athletics-certifies-francistown-marathon#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/world-athletics-certifies-francistown-marathon\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/world-athletics-certifies-francistown-marathon\",\"name\":\"WORLD ATHLETICS CERTIFIES FRANCISTOWN MARATHON - 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