AfricaPress-Tanzania: ATHLETICS Tanzania (AT) has once again announced rescheduling the National Athletics Championship, which was scheduled to be hosted in Dar es Salaam in August this year.
AT Information and Communication Officer, Tullo Chambo said yesterday in Dar es Salaam that they have been forced to push-back the championship which was to be staged from August 15 to 16th this year at the 2020 National Stadium, due to failure to secure accommodation for the athletes on the dates of the event.
Chambo disclosed that AT has decided to push the championship to September 5 to 6th this year, and the host city will still be Dar es Salaam. This is the second time for AT to postpone the championship.
Initially, the AT had planned the event to be staged in May but rescheduled it to August due to the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, which also forced the government to suspend all sports activities on March 17th this year, before lifting the suspension on June 1st this year.
According to Chambo, the World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation and International Association of Athletics Federations (both abbreviated as IAAF), directed all its members to conduct their national championship within August after their initial events of its most members were disrupted due to the outbreak of the pandemic.
This year’s national championship secured support from the Tanzania Olympic Committee (TOC), after the AT requested the committee to assist the facilitation of the two-day championship.
TOC will facilitate the championship with support from Olympic Solidarity (OS) and Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (ANOCA).
AT needed 100m/-to stage this year’s championship, which is expected to attract at least 300 athletes from all regions in Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar, who will compete in various field and track events.
However, TOC will not facilitate the whole 100m/-budget for the event, so AT have requested other sports stakeholders to support them, to ensure the championship is successfully staged.
The events to be competed for are 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, 5,000m and 10,000m races, Relay for 100X4 and 4X400 events, long jump, triple jump, Discus, Shot Put as well as Javelin throws.
AT who had already sent invitations letter for the August championship to all regional athletics associations, apologised for the inconvenience caused and urged the associations to utilise the time to make proper preparations for their teams ahead of the event.
As disclosed earlier, the championship will be utilised by TOC to pick best athletes, who will be trained and later sent to compete for qualifications for the 2020 Olympic Games since AT is determined to increase the number of athletes to compete in the quadrennial Games in Tokyo.
To-date, only two athletes- -Alphonce Simbu and Failuna Matanga have met the Olympic Games qualification standards.
