Adventurous athletes are deeply disappointed that the Warrior Race, which has been a fixture on the local sports calendar for four adrenaline-filled years, will not be returning to the heart of the Lowveld in 2020.

This follows after Toyota, a title sponsor that came on board in 2016, withdrew their sponsorship from the obstacle course racing (OCR) event.

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“Because of the very high cost of hosting a Warrior event, we were forced to cut the three smallest events in the series in order to minimise our financial risk – Mbombela is one of them,” said Hennie Scheepers, one of the organisers.
“We’re working tirelessly to try and find a new title sponsor, but to no avail thus far,” said Scheepers.

It was with great anticipation in 2016 between over 1000 athletes took to the course at Kwanyoni Lodge. Two years ago the race moved to Mbombela Stadium and even though the number of participants held steady, it was unfortunately not enough to keep it alive. “We were all disappointed when we recently received the schedule. We lost Bloemfontein, as well as one of the Johannesburg races,” said Ricardo Gressel, better known as Warrior Ric, the MC of Warrior and a motivational dynamo, helping individuals and corporations embrace necessary change for desired results. “We have a good fan base in Mbombela. I was looking forward to coming back,” he said.

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Former Lowvelder Tian Basson, who recently relocated to Alberton to pursue his obstacle course racing career, expressed his concern that a lot of talent might now go to waste in the region. “The OCR community in the Lowveld started showing a steady growth,” he said.

Basson is a former maths and social science teacher at Laerskool Bergland, who claimed second place at last year’s South African OCR Championships in Blythedale, KwaZulu-Natal. He finished 40 seconds behind the winner, Claude Eksteen. “One of the main reasons I relocated was for accessibility to the other races.

I feel sorry for the training group I left behind as they will now need to cough up a lot more for an already expensive race elsewhere,” he said. Venues will now only include Tierpoort and Emerald Casino in Gauteng, Seaton Estate in the North Coast, Cape Town and Legends MX, Pretoria East. It is however not all doom and gloom for OCR athletes in Mbombela.

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“I have a huge passion for obstacle course racing, having trained at Core360 and competed in the Warrior Race Black Ops Elite category for about two years. OCR is growing extremely fast in South Africa, with a huge demand for this fun, yet challenging course.

“We believe in local events and would like to ensure that Lowvelders have the opportunity to partake in OCR events again. In this coming year, we are planning a few events, which include an obstacle course challenge at Hannah Game Lodge in June, Dashing Divas (Women’s OCR event similar to Muddy Princess) at Core360 and possibly a new obstacle course challenge at Core360 in the coming year,” said Harshil Mitha, director and co-owner of Lactic Acid Event Management.