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The
200-day milestone to the World Cup will be celebrated in Johannesburg with loads of fun,
competitions and trumpeting vuvuzelas.
YOUNG
football fans in Joburg can look forward to a day of fun when the Diski Striker vehicle will
spend the day driving around the city to celebrate 200 days before kickoff of
the 2010 FIFA World Cup™.
Entertaining young residents: Diski Striker will visit Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton; Zoo Lake in Parkview; and Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown
The
200-day mark is on Sunday, 22 November, when Diski Striker - an eye-catching
vehicle shaped like a soccer ball with a dung beetle perched on top - will visit
Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton; Zoo Lake in Parkview; and Mary Fitzgerald
Square in Newtown, entertaining young people during its journey through the
city.
The
huge soccer ball on the vehicle, a project conceived by the City's department
of community development and the James Hall Museum of Transport, features
numerous interesting historical facts about the FIFA World Cup. The vehicle is
used as a learning tool to promote the 2010 World Cup.
Starting
off at the museum in La Rochelle, in the south, Diski Striker will leave for
Sandton at 9am. At Nelson Mandela Square, there will be fun face painting competitions
and a quiz about the World Cup. Participants will be asked questions for which
they must seek answers on the giant ball. Prizes will include soccer balls and
vuvuzelas.
There
will also be prizes for the staunchest supporter of any FIFA World Cup team and
young fans are urged to come wearing their football gear, including supporters'
clothing, face paint, makarapas and vuvuzelas.
From
Sandton, Diski Striker will proceed to Zoo Lake, where the entertainment
programme will start at 10.50am. The Diski Striker team will then leave for
Mary Fitzgerald Square for similar entertainment at 11.45am. The tour will wrap
up back at the transport museum at 12.30pm.
With
202 days to go before the World Cup kicks off on 11 June 2010, the City of
Johannesburg is well on track to hosting a successful tournament. On 23 October,
Soccer City, the venue for the opening and final matches, celebrated the start
of the final completion inspections of the giant stadium with a roof wetting.
Counting down: 2010 mascot Zakumi with two young fans
The
88 000-seat stadium is expected to start a dry run of all services by the
end of February 2010.
Joburg's
other World Cup venue, Ellis Park, hosted the opening and final matches of the
2009 FIFA Confederations Cup, an event hailed as successful by Sepp Blatter, the
FIFA president. The 62 000-seat stadium will host a semifinal match during
the World Cup.
Besides
the world-class stadiums, the City has also successfully rolled out the Bus
Rapid Transit (BRT) system, which is changing the face of public transport. Rea
Vaya, as it is known, will come in handy for transporting football fans during
the competition.
Stadiums
marked as training venues for the 2010 World Cup - Orlando, Dobsonville,
Rand and Ruimsig - are also ready for
play.
The
200-day celebrations come just after the last of the 32 countries to qualify
for the event were announced. Billed as one of the strongest line-ups in the
football tournament's history, it includes heavyweights like Germany, England,
France, Brazil, Argentina and Italy.
On
Thursday, 19 November, the ambassadors of the 31 countries that have qualified
for the raised the flags of their respective countries at Safa House, in
Nasrec, to "celebrate the coming together of six continents, 32 teams and
billions of people around the world", according to Danny Jordaan, the 2010 FIFA
World Cup Organising Committee (OC) chief executive.
The
32nd participating team is Bafana Bafana, the host country's
national squad.
Tickets
to the World Cup have been selling well since sales opened in February. So far,
650 527 tickets have been sold, with 345 894 of these going to South
Africans.
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