Letter from Johannesburg Harriers Athletic Club
Official letter from JHAC.
The club would like to take this opportunity to thank our running community in supporting our race. Due to your support, the Jackie Gibson Marathon / Allan Fergason Half Marathon held on April 4, 2016 was a huge success.
I do express the hope that it was beneficial to all the runners’ personal running programmes.
It came to our attention that we might have aggravated some runners due to an unforeseen mistake. As race organisers, (some of you might have had a similar experience) one finds it very difficult to find sponsors for your race and for water tables. One then tends to grab any opportunity coming along in the form of support. This exact situation happened when we were organising our race – as there were only a few sponsored water tables, we were forced to grab any help offered.
So it happened that the DA (political party of that ward) offered to assist us with manning a water table. We welcomed this gesture, not knowing that this would be a direct breaking of one of the IAAF-Rules. Ignorance got us in very hot water and having to attend a disciplinary hearing.
We want to state that as a club, Johannesburg Harriers Athletic Club has no affiliation with any political party and that we gained no other benefits but to have smooth-running water tables for our runners.
We want to formally apologise to all the runners and supporters whom we might have offended by using the forenamed political party to assist with the water table. Please see this mistake that we made during our organising the event as being an honest oversight of the IAAF rule. May this also serve as a warning to all clubs organising an event, to be very diligent pertaining to all the rules and regulations of CGA, ASA and the IAAF.
Let us support each other in the sport in order to make it enjoyable, acceptable and fair towards runners of all religions, cultures and beliefs.
I hope this apology statement will be accepted in the good spirit it was written.
Johan Visser, chairman, Johannesburg Harriers Athletic Club
