Moorosi Tsiane
This year’s edition of the Sky Events Corporate Challenge set for 28 August at Maseru Mall is expected to be bigger and an even greater success.
The event, according to Lesotho Sky director Christian Schmidt, continues to increase in popularity and draw diverse participation from different corporate organisations.
The fun-filled challenge is now in its third year and Schmidt is happy with the way it has been received by the business community and other stakeholders.
“There has been significant growth for the event over the past two years. In our first year, we had about 350 participants and this figure rose to 500 last year. We are expecting a further increase this year, with each company represented by a team of five people who will compete as a group and not individuals,” Schmidt said.
According to Schmidt, the event is aimed at promoting team-work and also help create a networking platform for employees from different organisations.
“We have the Lesotho Sky race which features cyclists from different parts of the world and of-course locals, but this Corporate Challenge was created to grow Basotho’s interest in physical activities, and most importantly, we would want to motivate people to live a healthy lifestyle.
“Teamwork is an important aspect of this event so the challenge is not all about performance. Of-course, there will be winners but we also target beginners with little experience on physical activities.”
Schmidt, who is the founder of the event, also noted he would want to see the Challenge being held in other parts of the country and not just Maseru.
“We would like to see the event growing and even expanding to other districts of the country so that the nation can benefit as a whole, and not only people who work here in Maseru or are based in Maseru,” he added.
On his part, Lesotho Sky events manager Kananelo Masia said cycling had been excluded from this year’s Challenge.
“We learnt that many people were hesitating to take part in the event because they couldn’t ride bicycles so we have deiced to pull them out of our races category. Teams will only be competing in lebili, tug-of-war, sack-race, off-road obstacles course and bicycle polo,” he said.
Masia further said each team would pay M1500 to participate with registration closing on 14 August.
“Each company can register as many teams as possible for as long as they are in groups of five. Again, registration is not restricted to companies; any group of five people can register even if they are not from any organisation,” said Masia.
Meanwhile, Total Garage has sponsored the event with M60 000, while Maseru Mall and Metropolitan Lesotho have each injected M50 000.