Africa-Press – Tanzania. ATHLETICS Tanzania (AT) has said it will focus on producing sprint and field event athletes since many of the country’s competitive runners focus only on marathons.
Unlike in the previous years whereby Tanzania felt proud of producing sprint and middle distance runners in the likes of Claver Kamanya, Luiza John, Samwel Mwera and Mwinga Mwanjala, a middle-distance runner who holds the record of becoming the first woman to represent the country a the 1980 in 800m and the 2003 All Africa Games bronze medalist, Lwiza John among others, the country now lacks the presentation of track and field events runners when it comes to major events like the Olympic Games and the Commonwealth Games.
AT Vice president John Bayo has said that the country won accolades in the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s because it produced enough competent runners who won international headlines.
“We had runners who participated in 100m, 800m, 1500, 5000m and 10,000m who performed well to win medals for the country in various local and international events,”
“But now we miss many of them as many of the current competitive runners focus on marathon events,”
“We feel that we need to produce young runners who will also get involved in track and field events,” he said.
In yester-years, Tanzania did well in various international events including the Olympic and Commonwealth Games to win different medals.
Filbert Bayi and Suleiman Nyambui are among those who triumphed in their career and many of them did well in short distance events.
Bayi set the world record for 1500m in 1974 and the mile in 1975 and is still the 1500m Commonwealth Games record holder
He also won a silver medal in the 3,000m steeplechase at the 1980 Summer Olympic games in Moscow alongside Suleiman Nyambui who won a silver medal at the same event in 5000m.
During the peak of athletics, the country also did well in marathon through different runners in the likes of Juma Ikangaa, the New York marathon winner and a sentimental favourite in Boston Marathon after finishing second three years in a row from 1988 to 1990.
Alphonce Simbu, Failuna Matanga are among runners who specialise in marathons.
“We see the need of having sprint and field events runners because we see the chances of producing competent runners who have for many years been untapped,” he said.
Kenya and Uganda are among other African countries that have invested well in the track and field events, apart from marathon hence standing chances of doing well in the international events.
