Tanzania: Athletics Group Poised to Pick Athletes for Maputo Games

The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)

Suleiman Jongo

9 June 2011

Athletics Tanzania (AT) has embarked on assessing individual performance of athletes earmarked for the All Africa Games in Mozambique in September. AT secretary general Suleiman Nyambui told The Citizen yesterday that athletes with the best time will be considered to make a cut into the national team squad.

The athletics body hosted the East and Central Africa Championship last month here and several local runners won medals.However, Nyambui put it plainly that winning medals alone would not guarantee the athletes a place in the the Games.

“You can win medals, but fail to attain the qualifying marks, so we’ll focus on the time spent rather than just the medals,” he said. He added: “We want to field a strong national team that can win medals in London, therefore we’ll be very strict when it comes to selection.”

According to Nyambui, the executive committee, which was busy analysing the performances yesterday, will pick the best ones who will later receive a special training ahead of the September event.The outspoken official said the national team will also include those who will excel at the national championship planned for early next month.

The May championship saw the hosts take the sixth spot after winning two gold, four silver and nine bronze medals. Kenya were the overall winners after hauling nine gold medals, three silver and a bronze.

Sudan finished second with eight gold, eight silver and seven bronze medals.

The third place went to Ethiopia who won four gold medals, six silvers and one bronze followed by Uganda with four gold, three silver and seven bronze medals. Zanzibar, who were not primed to finish above the Mainland, managed to grab three gold, seven silver and five bronze medals.Nyambui was optimistic that this time around, Tanzania will cart home many medals from the Maputo event.

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