AfricaPress-Tanzania: Tanzanian athletes are worried that their fitness levels will deteriorate in this period, which all sports activities have been suspended due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.
Due to suspension of sports activities which goes with travelling restrictions around the World, many runners who were planning to train abroad in effort to maintain their level of fitness have failed to do so and they are afraid training individually might not give them good results.
The Arusha based short distance runner Benjamin Michael told the ‘africa-press on Saturday’ in an interview that the coronavirus outbreak, which is threatening the global welfare, has affected many athletes in many ways.
“It is difficult for them to maintain fitness level especially when you don’t have competitions,” Michael said.
“Coronavirus outbreak has hit us in the year which has many important sports activities such as Olympic Games and IAAF World Championship just to name a few. All these events have been suspended due to this pandemic as part of efforts to curb its spread,” he said.
Michael said, this month (April) he and his colleagues Ally Hamis Gulam and Magdalena Shauri were scheduled to travel to Djibouti to participate in a race in search of Olympic qualifications entry standard but due to the pandemic the race was called off.
He added that some runners had planned to pitch camps in Arusha and Kenya respectively ahead of the Olympic qualifier races.
“Even those, who had already booked their tickets for the Olympic Games had planned to set camp in Kenya but such plans have vanished,” he said.
“You need to have conducive environment and good training facilities as well as trainers to keep maintaining your level of fitness plus competing in various events,” he added.
Tanzania had earlier suspended all sports activities for 30 days, which ended last Thursday but early this week the government extended the suspension for unknown period, while it concentrates in the combat against the spread of the deadly virus in the country.
Tokyo2020 Olympic Games, which where scheduled to be staged in July was suspended and now rescheduled for July 23 to August 24th 2020 in Japan.
The Olympics was expected to draw 11,000 athletes and 4,400 Paralympic athletes and large support staffs from 206 national Olympic committees.
The 2020 World Athletics U20 Championships which were scheduled for Nairobi, Kenya from July 7-12 has also been suspended due to the ongoing challenges posed by the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) internationally.
The current global situation would have seriously compromised the event at this time as many countries are restricting international travel, invoking necessary quarantines and advising citizens and event organisers to avoid mass gatherings.
