Wednesday, 17 January 2018

Govt clarifies on Simbu’s Australian Games snub


THE government has officially confirmed that the IAAF World Championship Bronze medalist Alphonce Felix Simbu will not be part of the Tanzanian team to participate in the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in Australia.



The statement was unveiled yesterday by the National Sports Council (NSC) in Dar es Salaam confirming the athlete will not travel with the team to Australia so as to give him a break and more preparation time for other coming international events.

The clarification on whether Simbu will be part of the country’s team in the Gold Coast Games or not came after the government, the Tanzania Olympic Committee (TOC) and Athletics Tanzania (AT) met for a discussion and decided to accept the runner’s pledge of being left out from the event.

As the break for the runner is part of technical strategy meant to give him an opportunity to prepare well for other international events, including the popular London Marathon to be held in April this year. This clarification has come following conflicting opinions and reports from various stakeholders on the matter.

The Commonwealth Games are also scheduled to be held in April, the month when London Marathon will be staged. As report that Simbu will not be part of the team was seen a sabotage or boycott of the runner and that is why the government requested athletic stakeholders to understand that there is no such an intention and that people should have confidence with the team which is expected to represent the country in the games.

The Club Games athletes, according to AT, are promising, talented and have met the qualifying standards. Meanwhile, Simbu has failed to excel in the recently held Arusha City Cross- Country series after finishing fourth in the third round of the series.

According to the Arusha City Cross – Country organising committee spokesman, Denis Male, IAAF Championship bronze medalist finished the 10 kilometre race in the fourth position after having 28:55 running time. The winner of the 10 km race was Simbu’s team colleague, Emmanuel Giniki who clocked 28:02 followed by Joseph Panga who spent 28:34.

While in women discipline in six kilometre event, Magdalena Shauri from JKT emerged the winner after spending 20:05 followed by Maycelina Issa also from JKT team who clocked 21:31. Despite Simbu failed to shine in the individual race, his team JKT emerged the overall winners in both men and women disciplines.

And apart from the two main races the 6 and 10 km events, there was also a 2km event for children. In girls event Glory Patrick from St. Jude school who clocked 08:01 won the race whereas the Boys’ side was won by Kelvin Mathias from Maranatha school who penned 6:54.

Arusha City Cross-Country race is facilitated by several stakeholders. They are the Posso International Promotions (Derek Froude), Sunrise Radio & Aspire Media via Maximilian Iranqe, African Ambassadors Athletics Club via Denis Malle and Arusha Training Sports Centre via Francis John.

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