Africa-Press – Tanzania. TANZANIAN marathoners — Alphonce Simbu and Failuna Matanga have failed to travel to Vienna, Austria to compete in the Olympic Games qualifying series because of visa complications.
The two athletes, who have already qualified for the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games set for July this year, were expected to leave last Friday, ahead of the special race to be held today.
Athletics Tanzania (AT) Vice- President John Bayo said yesterday that according to set requirements, the duo were supposed to undergo Covid-19 test and wait for 14 days of authorisation of their visa application from Nairobi based Austria Embassy.
“This has actually put us out of the race because we cannot wait for 14 days as the race takes place tomorrow (today),” said Bayo.
After failing to travel to Vienna, the two runners will today take part in Dar es Salaam City Marathon, competing in the half marathon.
Their participation in Vienna event was just to test their mettle ahead of the Olympic Games, held after every four years.
So far, three marathoners have qualified for the Games. Apart from Simbu and Failuna another local marathoner Gabriel Geay has also qualified for the Tokyo event. He attained the mark in Rome, Italy in another qualifying series a week ago. Tanzania fielded only two marathoners, Geay and Augustine Sulle.
The event attracted over 200 runners from different countries. Geay finished sixth with a timing of 2:04:55 an improvement of three minutes from his previous race record.
Two local swimmers Collins Saliboko and Hilal Hilal recently flopped at the African Swimming Confederation (Confédération Africaine de Natation: Cana) camp held in Stellenbosch, South Africa, from May 2 to 8 this year.
It was an opportunity for swimmers to achieve the Olympic Games qualifying standards, but they failed.
Tokyo Olympic Games were earlier expected to be held last year, but were postponed because of Coronavirus pandemic.
Tanzania has been participating in the Olympic Games since 1960’s and has since then been sending athletes to the games in various sporting events.
The local athletes have failed to break a medal-less streak that has lasted since the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, where steeplechase runner Filbert Bayi and long-distance runner Suleiman Nyambui won silver for each in their respective events.
