Uitsig’s popular relay meeting attracts more than 30 schools
The annual Uitsig/Tuks relay event has again attracted great interest this year, while a new charity aspect has also become part of the program.
Uitsig High School presented the 12th version of their popular Uitsig/Tuks Relay event at the Tuks Athletics Stadium last week.
This unique event is the only one of its kind in South Africa and a total of 32 High Schools travelled from all over the country to take part in the action.
The event is particularly popular with schools, as it takes place shortly before the various inter-high meetings, which gives athletic coaches the opportunity to train their relay teams against top opposition.
Teams at the event are divided into two categories to ensure that athletes can compete on an equal footing with regard to the capacity and ability of their school. Therefore, the teams compete in terms of medium and large schools.
The standard of athletics was particularly high, and several meeting records were improved.
In the section for large schools, Hoërskool Waterkloof won the team competition, while Afrikaans Hoër Seunskool and Afrikaans Hoër Meisies were tops in the respective divisions.
Potchefstroom Gimnasium won the overall division for medium schools, while their boys’ team was also crowned as winners. In this section, Midstream College’s girls was the best female team.
This year the event also accommodated a new aspect when Uitsig High School decided to donate a percentage of their profit to a charity organisation. Participating schools were challenged to open their hearts for the less fortunate.
HeadStart Kids, founded by Lily Geerdts, was selected as the beneficiary for these funds and also some toys, food and educational material that was donated by participating schools and several sponsors like Future Life, Nova Chocolates, Rugani vegetable juice, Momento Photography and Daisy Electronics/Canon.
Twenty-four kids from Oratile ECD Centre in Diepsloot were invited to run a relay with athletes from the previous year’s winning schools. It was one of the highlights of the event to see how these children showed enthusiasm for the race, while they got huge support from the spectators.
GROOTfm was once again present with a satellite broadcasting unit on the track. Well-known actress and radio personality Lindie Strydom shared information about the HeadStart Kids programme and Tekkie Buddies at the Modiba Athletics Club in Olievenhoutbosch.
The Tekkie Buddie project was started by nine-year old Anneriki Heyneke, who noticed that most of the Modiba Athletics Club’s athletes do not have tekkies to run with. She started collecting tekkies, sports clothes and money to contribute to their travelling cost, food parcels and registration fees for different athletics events in which they participated.
Participating schools were invited by Uitsig High School to donate second hand tekkies towards this project as well.
As always, the event concluded with a fun relay run in which several teams of GROOTfm as well as teams from the Modiba Athletics Club and the new Murray&Roberts marathon club participated.
For more information about HeadStart Kids visit www.headstartkids.co.za.
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