Mozambique: Quelimane wins African City of Sport title for 2024

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Mozambique: Quelimane wins African City of Sport title for 2024

7:42 CAT | 08 Dec 2023

Photo: ACES Europe

The European Parliament hosted the ACES Europe Awards Gala 2023 in Brussels on Thursday, awarding more than 50 cities.

The Mozambican municipality of Quelimane will be taking the title of the first African City of Sport in January, with thousands of activities planned in the following 12 months, but mayor Manuel de Araujo is also thinking about the title of the continent’s “Bicycle Capital”.

“For us it represents a great responsibility. We are very proud of this achievement, because being the first is never repeated. It is the first time that an African city has been elected through a candidacy,” Mayor Manuel de Araujo explained to Lusa after receiving the ACES Europe title of Africa City of Sport 2024 in Brussels yesterday.

This is the first time that the Brussels-based European Capitals of Sport Association (ACES Europe) – which has the support of UNESCO and manages applications to promote and encourage sports – has awarded this title to an African city, in this case the capital of Zambezia province, in central Mozambique. Quelimane, a city of around 350 thousand inhabitants.

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“We have a vast work program. We want to start on January 1st. We will not waste not one minute, not one second. The strategy we adopted is that, we have 12 months and each month will be focused on a specific sport,” Manuel de Araujo explained.

“We have already decided that January will be athletics month. We will launch the São Silvestre race to start. And then a series of activities linked to athletics will take place during the month,” he added. “Thousands” of activities and competitions aimed at each modality will follow every month.

“We are not just going to be the capital of the province of Zambezia, we are going to be the capital, not of Mozambique, but of Africa for Sport. We first want to promote Quelimane, but also promote sports in all its aspects. We have a large population of young people, and also a lot of women who like sport. So, through this award, we really want to institutionalize this love for sport,” the mayor declared.

In addition to athletics, modalities such as football, volleyball, beach and indoor football will be highlighted, and also cycling, for how else would Quelimane be considered the “bicycle capital” of Mozambique?

“We want to project the fact that we are now the bicycle capital. We want to be the African bicycle capital too. As you know, Manchester was awarded the title of European cycling capital this year [by ACES Europe, in 2024]. We would like this award to go to Quelimane in 2025,” said Araujo.

The European Parliament in Brussels yesterday hosted the ACES Europe awards gala in which more than 50 cities were awarded, including the three reference capitals: Sofia (Bulgaria) – World Capital of Sport 2024, Genoa (Italy) – European Capital of Sport 2024, and San Juan (Argentina) – American Capital of Sport 2024.
In 2023, Viana do Castelo, Portugal, was elected the best European Sports City by ACES Europe, and was also distinguished at yesterday’s event.

“We are pioneers, yes, we are aware of this and we hope to be able to cooperate and exchange experiences also with some cities, and with some Portuguese councils,” the mayor of Quelimane admitted.

“Why not send young people to train, and also coaches, experts from these councils who could come to Quelimane as part of this award?” Araujo asked.

The objective, he pointed out, is to bring athletes to Quelimane not only from the province and the rest of Mozambique, but “also from Southern Africa and other Portuguese-speaking African countries”.

Source: Lusa