Patrimony To Preserve

As visitors and athletes from some 15 countries converge on Buea, capital of the South West Region, tomorrow (25 February, 2023) for the Mount Cameroon Race of Hope in its 50th anniversary, analysts connote the event as a patrimony to preserve.
A tourism spree by three Europeans on Mount Cameroon in 1972 awoke the sleeping potency of a giant foot race event that has come through 50 years now. The tourists were workers of a brewery in Cameroon (Guinness) who made a walk as family and friends to the top of Africa’s second tallest mountain after Kenya’s Kilimanjaro. 
From their enthusiasm, officials of the brewery met the Cameroon Government for an authorisation to organise the first marathon on Mount Cameroon and got a deal for 10 March, 1973. That first race on Mount Cameroon was reportedly designed to spice the eve of the first ever agric-show in the country as a national event in Buea attended by the then President Ahmadou Ahidjo. The inaugural marathon race on Mount Cameroon (10 March, 1973), which also inaugurated the advent of agric-shows in Cameroon had as starting and ending point on the field of the then BTTC (now BHS Buea). The Mount Cameroon Race of Hope has come to stay even 50 years after. From its organisational clout to the number of athletes and participating countries, there is evidence that it remains an international event with exceptional character. First it pulls over 500 athletes every year in addition to the numerous tourists. The event flies the flag of Cameroon higher each year not only for winnin...