Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE Minister for Culture, Arts and Sports, Mohamed Mchengerwa has commended marathoner Alphonce Simbu for winning a silver medal in the ongoing Commonwealth Games of Birmingham.
Mchengerwa is in Birmingham with the country’s envoys in the Club Games.
Alphonce Simbu has earned Tanzania a silver medal after finishing second behind Ugandan Victor Kiplangat in the 42km marathon in Birmingham, England early on Saturday.
Simbu brings home medal sixteen years after marathoner Samson Ramadhani won the gold medal in the club games held in Australia in 2006.
Four years back in 2002, Francis Naali won the marathon’s gold after winning the 42km race in the games held in Manchester, England.
Marathon has been a Tanzanian domain in most of the Club Games.
In 1998, Simon Mrashani and Geway Suja won silver and bronze after finishing second and third respectively in the games staged in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia.
Tanzania won its only gold in Kuala Lumpur through pugilist Michael Yombayomba.
Kiplangat has become the first Ugandan to win the Commonwealth marathon title.
The 22-year-old looked to be cruising to victory with 1km to go, but took a wrong turn and wasted precious seconds having to turnaround.
Thankfully for him, he was over 30 seconds ahead of his closest rival, and he recovered to break the tape first in a time of 2:10:55. Nice dance at the finish line.
As it has been in the past events, the 42km race was solely an East African affair as the place went to Kenyan Michael Githae who won bronze.
In swimming Collins Saliboko clocked 1:57.76 minute in men’s 200m Freestyle.
It was tight contest as out of 38 only eleven swimmers qualified for the semifinals with two qualifying by a big margin.
Swimmers who qualified are Elijah Winnington who clocked 1:46.87, Matthew Sates spent 1:48.25, Duncan Scott with 1:47.16, Calum Jarvis spent 1:48.22 and Joe LItchfield who clocked 1:48.44.
Also qualified are Tom Dean with 1:47.19, Mack Horton with 1:47.37 and Matthew Richards who spent 1:47.59.
Those who qualified by the margin were McMillan at 1:48.51 and Ruslan Gaziev at 1:48.59.
On the boxing, Tanzania boxing team begun the commonwealth campaign on Friday night with a loss after captain Alex Isendi lost on points to Ryan Alston of Antigua.
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