Athletics South Africa sets March & April dates for Permit Meets

Athletics South Africa (ASA) has confirmed that one province and two clubs have stepped forward to host Permit Meetings during the months of March and April 2013.

Starting on Tuesday March 19, 2013, Athletics Central North West will host a permit meeting at the KK MacArthur Stadium in Potchefstroom.

Organiser, Lappies Swanepoel, is undaunted by hosting first permit meeting in South Africa in over a decade.

“We hosted an excellent Yellow Pages series event on behalf of Athletics SA in 2012, so there is no reason why we cannot do it on our own in 2013”, she said.

On Thursday, April 18, 2013, the Tuks Athletics Club will host the Tuks Gert le Roux Invitation Meeting at their campus in Hatfield, Pretoria. Club manager Danie Cornelius is equally optimistic.

“We intend to put on a meeting which will showcase the top athletics talent in the country and pull the local athletics supporters back to the stadium.” The meeting is named after the doyen of Athletics Statisticians, Gert le Roux.

Two days later, on Saturday April 20, 2013, the Traumeel University of North West-Pukke Athletics Club will host the Traumeel NWU-Pukke Invitation meeting at the KK MacArthur Stadium in Potchefstroom. Well-known middle distance coach, Jean Verster, one of the organisers of the meeting, is enthusiastic.

“This is the model adopted in most overseas countries, where the national federation provides the framework for event organisers to put on meetings which will be entertaining and generate local support. We will do our best to put on an entertaining meeting with the top athletes in action and to fill the stadium again.”

“I am really pleased that Tuks are honouring Gert le Roux, who has been a long-time friend of the sport in athletics in South Africa and who worked tirelessly to ensure that the statistics were correctly recorded. It is also fantastic that these organisers have come forward to organise events in 2013. We are hoping to announce one or two more in the next couple of weeks”, said Athletics SA president, James Evans.

The event organisers will be responsible for the presentation of the meeting and will select the events and athletes at the meetings, provided they fall within the parameters set by Athletics South Africa. These have been set to ensure that national level athletes are provided with competition opportunities, as far as possible.