Maun’s Spirit Squad win epic mud race

Spirit Squad Team has won this year’s Diretse Tough and Dirty Time Championship after beating the other 13 teams they competed against last weekend.

The 2016 mud race was bigger and better event that attracted teams from as far as Maun. On Saturday, all the 14 teams competed in the 2.5 km, 5 km and the10 km races from which the top seven finishers proceeded to the finals. The following day represented the final selection of the winners, where the top three were awarded gold, silver and bronze prizes respectively. As the main purpose of the mud race is to promote team spirit, the aptly named Spirit Squad team simplified this meaning for all the spectators. They started their race at the same time and assisted each other along the way and arrived at the start-finish ahead of all at the same time.

Delta Force, a Gaborone based team from Block 7 got position two, while Mega Size College emerged position three. Delta Force participated in last year’s mud race, and acquired the same position, while Mega Size College had no position last year. Speaking at the opening ceremony of the event, Gaborone City Council Clerk Mpho Mathe encouraged people to participate in sporting activities like the mud race, saying that they promote teamwork within communities. He also applauded the participants and encouraged the race organisers to keep up the good work.

Spirit Squad captain, Desire Kutlapye was humbled by their victory. “We only heard about the competition two weeks before and started preparing, so we expected a tough time here, but we are glad that we are the conquerors,” he said. Event organiser Tebogo Kgaodi said their aim is to make the mud race an international standard event. He said that this year’s race was challenging as they had greater heights as compared to last year, and also had an open space.

“We had limited space at Bonnington Farms last year, but today’ space was impressive as it challenged every participant to work hard on a wider space with more strength compared to last year,” said Kgaodi. There were more spider webs and the huge mud pit filled with water and more crawling was involved.

On the other hand, he encouraged women teams to take part in the next event to prove that it is not just an activity for men only. He applauded Unique Tiles team, as their team was a mixture of men and women. Diretse mud race will henceforth become a quarterly event with the next edition slated for August.