The Addis Ababa mass sport, 6th edition, took place last Sunday at Meskel Square. Organized in collaboration with the Sports Commission and Addis Ababa Sports Commission, multitudes participated in the mass sport.
The Addis Ababa mass sport activity, organized by Addis Ababa Sport Commission was held in various sub-cities. More than 200,000 participants took part in different sub cities. Following the growing developments of buildings in the capital city, sporting venues are continuously being replaced by construction works. Due to this reason, the youth are losing sport arenas to spend their recreational time.
To this effect, the Sports Commission has stated that constructing sport arenas, teenage groups, and hosting competitions are the plans to be implemented in the upcoming years. It is widely recognized that participation in sports has a significant positive impact on people’s health and quality of life. Nonetheless, it is known that only specific individuals often practice daily sports activities. Particularly, the mass sports or live sport events were the lowest in most places of Addis Ababa.
After mass sports started taking place in Addis Ababa in the last six months, the number of participants has increased into the thousands. According to Addis Ababa City sport commission, currently Addis Ababa has about 66 conventional stadiums in which 33 of them are licensed to perform mass sports. Among these, the Abebe Bikila stadium is reconstructed with an outlay of 105 million Birr has reached 95 percent completion. Likewise, the renewal of Akaki stadium, 70 percent completed, costs 500,000,000 Birr, the Sports commission stated.
The commission further pointed out that mass sports plays a vital role to strengthen the administrative and management capacities of different sporting bodies, to be able to implement sustainable sports development program. It can be learned that Rwanda is one of the best examples of African countries that actively engage in mass sports.
The Ethiopian Herald January 7, 2020
