Africa-Press – Tanzania. TANZANIA Olympic Committee (TOC) has said that there is no change of date so far for the Tokyo Olympic Games in Japan, urging the local athletes to intensively prepare for the July games as well as focusing on their qualification bids.
The games were to be held mid last year, but were postponed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) due to Covid-19 threat. The IOC pushed the event to mid this year.
However, there have been cancelation and postponement of several other major international competitions affected by the ongoing Covid-19 unstable situations, leading to heavy travel restrictions.
TOC secretary general, Filbert Bayi told The Daily News on Saturday that the games will be held as scheduled. “Last year, we informed our athletes that the games could not be there, but this time around, the games will be held as scheduled so far as there is no any information from the Olympic Games governing body,” said Bayi.
Covid-19 has also affected preparations of athletes as several others globally could not travel for training camps and participate in qualifying series.
Bayi said besides having only two runners who have met qualification standards, the other sporting disciplines that have shown interest to look for the qualification of their own athletes is swimming.
He said the body is intending to send swimmers to South Africa next month in their bid to qualify for the games. Swimming, boxing and athletes are the main body capable of sending their respective athletes to the qualifying series. Athletics Tanzania ( AT) vicepresident John Bayo recently told The Daily News that their athletes are in camp in Arusha and that apart from their qualified runners, 12 others are also seeking for their qualifications in overseas next month.
Bayo also cited Coronavirus as an obstacle for his runners to travel as they could not travel because of international travel restrictions as other qualifying series were cancelled out or postponed.
“As you know the Coronavirus situation has not globally been stable and countries lined up to host the qualifying series are still struggling to put it under control”.
“This has caused the cancelation and delay of hosting qualifying series thus denying local runners chances to qualify,” he said. Only two local runners, Alphonce Simbu and Failuna Abdi Matanga have so far qualified for the games. Currently, there are very few Olympic qualifying opportunities in the Marathon due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Olympic Games will take place in Tokyo, Japan, from July 23 to August 8. Judokas, who have had their participation felt at the games, are also reported to be in an intensive training at Ukonga for the qualifying events to be held in Morocco, while amateur boxers are awaiting a decision from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Task Force to select the names as per rankings.
