Thirteen thousand participants in 2023! This is almost two and a half times the 5446 participants of the first edition (2017). Even the ratio of men to women (69.6% against 31.4%) has improved in favor of women (58% against 42%). The 10 km of Port-Gentil are undoubtedly a success on the sporting, popular and, no doubt, financial.

At the time of the assessments, we have already won by beating the record of the number of participants. As for the main records established by the chronometers during the previous editions, they will have to wait. This will surely give an even greater attraction and interest for the next edition of a competition that is becoming for a long time one of the annual must-see events in the city of sand.

With the success of this edition, the 10 km of Port-Gentil appear from now on as a phenomenon of society which requires that one looks beyond the sporting and/or economic repercussions.

Indeed, it is hard to imagine that such an event could not have an impact on the local multisectoral development.

We can already congratulate the organizers for having designed an itinerary that includes the two parts of the city which, historically, were separated by a demarcation line between what was called "the city", i.e. the coastal part, formerly occupied by Europeans and "Europeanized" Africans, and "the plain", the working-class neighborhoods. The course of the 10 km is thus an immersion of the participants, runners and spectators, in the districts of Port-Gentil, with their human and social realities, by crossing one of the two large markets of the city, the market of the Beacon.

However, the 10 km of Port-Gentil will not contribute, by itself, to the influence of the economic capital of Gabon, if this event does not appear as an opportunity to integrate aspects related to the economic, social, cultural, environmental and tourist development of the oil city. It is then necessary to turn, not to the organizers, but to the actors of these various sectors.

What initiatives should the municipality take so that structuring projects and development of the neighborhoods accompany this type of event? What can the actors of the tourism sector contribute? Culture and the arts? Craftsmen, etc.

So many questions whose answers could make many Port-Gentillais go from being spectators to actors in each edition of the 10 km of Port-Gentil.

Photo: crossing the market of the Beacon

Fidèle AFANOU EDEMBE