The Kigalians including foreigners, totaling more than 5,000, gathered in the streets of Kimihurura to do sports in the night hours known as “Kigali Night Run”, the first of which took place this year 2023 on Friday, the 13th of January.
The sport started around 06:00 p.m. and was organized by the Rwanda Athletics Federation (RAF) in collaboration with the City of Kigali, the Ministry of Sports and the MTN Telecommunication Company.
It was organized in order to start the year by encouraging Rwandans to fall in love with sports.
The Mayor of the City of Kigali, Pudence Rubingisa, the Deputy Mayor of the City of Kigali in charge of Urbanisation and Infrastructure, Dr Mpabwanmaguru Mérard and the President of the Rwanda Athletics Federation [RAF], Lt. Col (Rtd) Kayumba Lemuel, were among the thousands of participants in the sport.
Although it was planned that the participants of this sport started to reach Kigali Heights at 06:00, there were also those who stopped for a few minutes.
After doing sports in front of Kigali Heights with the help of coaches, the participants of this sport ran a distance of 5.4 kilometers along Kigali Heights- Kimihurura Park- KCC road on the side of Rugando and the Dutch Embassy. together at Kigali Heights doing sports before finishing at around 08:40 p.m.
The participation was at a high level and there was joy on the faces of those at Kigali Heights. The German Pino, who arrived in Rwanda on Thursday, said that he was happy to have such a day on Friday in this sport.
He said, “My name is Pino, I am from Germany. This is my first day here and it went well, I enjoyed it. Thank you for inviting me to this event.”
Rudasingwa Lavi, who also participated in this sport, told the Medias that this sport should be extended to more days because it has become popular with more people than those who usually participate in Car Free Day.
He said, “This is a good thing because there are people who work on Sundays and cannot find time to participate in Car Free Day, it is a good opportunity for those who leave work instead of going to other programs to waste money, come to the gym, and their body can rest well.”
“You see that there are a lot of people, it’s a good thing that we are happy about, and we ask that it happen more often because when many people come from their jobs, they have time and come in large numbers. Night sports are great.” He added
The Mayor of Kigali City, Pudence Rubingisa, also told medias that they were happy with the turnout on Friday, saying that the total number of attendees was over 5,000.
He said, “Many people from Kigali City participated very much, we found that a little over 5000 people came. It’s amazing, you can see that they were tried of meeting again but also doing sports. You can see that there are a lot of young people involved, and we continue to put in a lot of effort so that the campaign continues and they participate more.”
“When we do this sport often, besides being good for maintaining our health, it is also to prevent infectious diseases, caused by blood pressure or having too much or too little sugar in the body.” He added
Mayor Rubingisa emphasized that such activities will continue to be added to different games so that the lives of the citizens continue to be good.
Kigali Night Run is a well-known public sports activity, where the residents of Kigali and those who travel to it meet at a designated place during the night hours, and do sports in order to help and motivate people to do sports regularly, and to encourage them to run fast, slow and walk. ‘legs.
It is part of the activities planned as part of the implementation of the sports policy aimed at helping Rwandans to do sports in order to have good health and prevent various diseases.
One of the aim of this sport is to prepare for the Kigali International Marathon, where its first edition started a few months before this international running race known as Kigali Peace Marathon.
Based on the requests of the residents of Kigali City, the Rwanda Athletics Federation ‘RAF’ is considering how it will be held at least once a month on a regular basis because they found it very helpful.
