AfricaPress-Tanzania: ATHLETICS Tanzania (AT) has extended National Athletics Championship deadline to enable all region’s participation in the two-day event.
Benjamin Mkapa Stadium is the venue of the event whose new date is early next month.
AT Information and Communication Officer, Tullo Chambo unveiled yesterday in Dar es Salaam that the move had been made after failure of many regions to meet the initial deadline of the championship earlier planned August 21st this year.
According to Chambo, AT had to extend the date after discovering the problem.
Now, according to the official, the deadline is August 27th, therefore all the regions are supposed to ensure they participate in the event that brings athletes from all over the country.
Only 13 regions managed to meet the initial deadline but after the extension, there are nine more regions confirmed participation including the hosts Dar es Salaam.
The regions that managed to meet the deadline were Mara, Manyara, Dodoma, Njombe, Iringa, Shinyanga, Geita, Kilimanjaro and the five regions of Zanzibar starting from Mjini Magharibi, then Kusini Unguja, Kaskazini Unguja, Kaskazini Pemba and Kusini Pemba.
After extension of the deadline nine other regions confirmed.
They are Singida, Kagera, Ruvuma, Katavi, Lindi, Rukwa, Songwe Kigoma and Mtwara, however with only three days remaining from the new deadline AT believes other regions can make it to the championship.
Speaking about preparations of this year’s championship, Chambo said that everything is on track and they expect more than 300 athletes to participate.
The event will be used to pick the best athletes for the national teams to represent the country in various international meets.
The Tanzania Olympic Committee (TOC) will facilitate the championship with a support from Olympic Solidarity (OS) and Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (ANOCA).
TOC will use the championship to pick best athletes, who will be trained and later sent to compete for qualifications for the 2020 Olympic Games.
To-date, only two athletes – Alphonce Simbu and Failuna Matanga have met the Olympic Games qualification standards.
The championship will involve various field and track events such as 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, 5,000m and 10,000m races, Relay for 100X 4 and 4X 400 events, long jump, triple jump, Discus, Shot Put as well as Javelin throws.
