New route for OCC
A brand new course record will be set at the 2017 Outeniqua Wheelchair Challenge (OCC) on Saturday 18 February.
This can be said with great certainty as Pieter Nel, director of the Road Race Foundation, has confirmed that the OCC half and full marathons will follow a completely new route this year.
Nel said the committee had to take note of the unhappiness expressed by the business community and residents about the associated traffic jams that virtually cut the town in two.
“The new route is more compact and covers half the distance of the old one, making it much more spectator friendly. Now the serious race contenders will whizz past any given point twice as many times as they previously did – the half marathon will be two laps and the full marathon four laps.”
The start (and finish) will still be at the entrance to Mount View Resort in York Street from where the athletes will make their way up York Street.
But the half and full marathon participants will, instead of taking Courtenay Street to the mall, return down York Street past the start/finish line to the first set of traffic lights at the N2 flyover and return the way they came. The majority, the fun participants, will also go around the circle at the George Museum but will return straight to Mount View Resort.
OCC event director Ansie Swart says that it’s ‘all systems go’. “The major sponsors, George Airport and George Municipality, are on board, together with the Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport, Lancewood Cheese, Mr Ice, Safari and Kempston.”
The OCC is an annual highlight for many of the participants. “People travel up to 2 000km to George, which shows the great need for the event. We can’t let it slip through our fingers; other provinces are chomping at the bit to take this event away from George,” said Swart. In the build-up to the OCC the committee is planning an awareness campaign to ascertain how wheelchair friendly George is.
“The idea is to put able-bodied people in a wheelchair and ask them to go to the various shopping centres and the CBD to draw money at an ATM, and to report back on how wheelchair friendly their journey was,” Swart said.
The OCC still needs volunteers, wheelchair pushers, marshals and of course donations. Contact Ansie Swart 079 397 4655 or swartam@telkomsa.net
ARTICLE: MYRON RABINOWITZ, GEORGE HERALD JOURNALIST
Source: George Herald