ASA championships underway in Bloem

All the country’s 17 athletics constituencies have descended on Bloemfontein to compete in the annual Athletic South Africa’s (ASA) Sub-Youth, Youth, Junior and Under-23 Track And Field Championships.

The athletics showpiece commenced on Thursday and will run through to Saturday, with 1765 athletes from all parts of South Africa all vying for glory. About 206 Free State athletes are competing at the event after 15 withdrew prior to the event due to injury and/or unforeseen circumstances.

“The tournament started well and is going according to our expectations. It is our plan to maintain it at that level till Saturday,” Athletics Free State (AFS) president, Matli Theletsane, told The Weekly.

It is the first time Bloemfontein hosts an event of this magnitude since the Mangaung Metro Municipality (MMM), under the leadership of Mayor Thabo Manyoni, pumped millions into revamping the Mangaung Athletics Stadium located in the centre of the Free State capital. The venue is an IAAF class one certificate track and is thus capable of hosting major national and international tournaments.

“This is the first national event that we are hosting here. I think more is yet to come because with this one we are just weighing up our capability to manage such events,” Theletsane said.

“We have been yearning to host this sort of event, but our stadium was previously not in an ideal condition. However, we got assistance from the Mangaung Metro Municipality who revamped it to the beautiful condition it is in right now. We can now host the African championships as well as the world championships for that matter. We are really proud to host this national event as Athletics Free State (AFS),” he added.

The ASA seniors’ championships event is set to take place next week from Wednesday in Stellenbosch, Western Cape, where world-class athletes from the Free State such as Wayde van Niekerk will be vying for more national honours.