ADDIS ABABA — Yaya Africa Athletics Village PLC, a new company established in 2009, has begun the construction of a modern athletics village in Sululta, 11 KM outside Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa.

The project is worth an estimated 80 million birr and will be constructed in three phases.

The shareholders of the company include two prominent athletes — Haile Gebrselassie and Belay Welasha, as well as an Ethiopian born Canadian businessman and former athlete Joseph Kibur.

The facility will include a running track, hotel, restaurant, gymnasium and sports clinic. It is to be built on 50,000 sq. meters of land and the first phase of the project is expected to be operational by September 2010.

“Haile, who has been making athletics history for the better part of two decades is about to make a new history by building the first private athletics village in the country. I am happy and excited to be
part of this history”, says Joseph Kibur, President and major shareholder of the company.

“our aim is to have the facility ready well before the London Olympics so that there will be enough time to produce new talent and continue Ethiopia’s winning tradition”.

Once the facility is fully operational, selected individuals will be provided with the range of services required for world class athletes.

This would include proper diet created by professional nutritionists, psychological training, climate controlled training rooms to simulate high humidity and hot conditions, and physical therapists for injury prevention and treatment.

In addition to providing services for local athletes, the hotel in the facility will also be used to house foreign athletes interested in high altitude training. By making the facility a tourist destination it will earn the country foreign currency.

(For more information please contact: [email protected] or mobile +251911-570432)