Tanzania Athletics to field athletes in Nairobi race

By Suleiman Jongo

Tanzanian athletes will feature in the Senior Africa Athletics Championship slated for Kenya from July 28 to August 1 at the Nyayo National Stadium.

According to Athletics Tanzania secretary general Suleiman Nyabui, the championship would involve both women and men runners.Nyambui said the event would help the Commonwealth Games bound envoys hone skills.

He said they would disclose names of the local athletes who will fly to Nairobi for the tournament.The 11-day Commonwealth Games will get underway on October 3 in New Delhi, India.The AT official said five long distance runners had already attained qualifying marks ahead of the club games.

The athletes include the Games gold medalist, Samson Ramadhani, who clocked 2:09:45 hours to win the Hanover Marathon, held in Germany last month and Msenduki Mohamed who clocked 2:11:01 at the Mainzer Guttenberg Marathon recently.

Others are Sipe Sambu, who spent 2:12:23 hours at Utretch Marathon (Germany) in April and Patrick Nyangero, and Oswald Revelian who clocked 2:12:17 and 2:13:07 respectively at the Nagpur Marathon in India.
As the continental event draws closer, the organisers, Kenya’s athletics governing body has landed another major support from the National Bank of Kenya.

According to Kenya’s Daily Nation, the bank recently came on board with a Sh340 million (KSh20 million) sponsorship cheque to become the third corporate firm that will partner with the local organising committee to stage Africa’s premier track and field championship.

Safaricom and Kenya Airways are the other sponsors already on board.

Over 1200 athletes and officials from 43 countries have confirmed participation in the event.