Akhwari raps AT for lousy Games preps

John Stephen Akhwari

Athletics legend John Stephen Akhwari has declared that Tanzania is not in a position to get a medal in the on going Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland.

 

Akhwari, who hails from Manyara, has been a symbol for the Olympic Movement after he hit the headlines in the Mexico City Games in 1968 after suffering injury and hobbled with pain, finishing last in the marathon, well after most people had left the stadium but a few spectators and some cameramen.

 

Akhwari said in an interview at his Manyara home that none of the athletes is in a position to win a medal as the athletes representing the country at the Glasgow Games were not drilled enough by Athletes Tanzania (AT) for the competition.

 

He said that for an athlete to get a medal in major competitions such as the Olympics and Commonwealth Games, such athlete has to be prepared thoroughly from grassroots to upper levels.

 

 “It’s surprising that AT staged its national championships two weeks prior to the Commonwealth Games.   The main aim to stage the national athletics championships is always to select the team to represent the country in international events, which was not the case in this event, so it was useless,” he said.

 

AT staged the championships when it had already picked the Commonwealth Games team, the veteran athlete pointed out.

 

 “I don’t know the criteria which AT used to select the team while it never staged any competition before the national athletics championships,” Akhweri affirmed.

 

 AT was doing such things deliberately with the aim of sending own and their friends’ relatives in the field of athletics to major events like the Glasgow Games.

 

Akhwari maintained that in the entire world no one can prepare national athletes by a three month camp to win medal but athletes undergo intensive training for the whole period from one tournament to another, three to four years.

 

“We are wasting time. No one can make a record of taking the gold medal while they just trained in three months, which is foolish. We need to train a team in a matter of years, as a continuous process going on throughout the four years of waiting for a competition,” said Akhwari.

 

In the marathon event in 1968 when he hobbled to the finishing line, when asked by journalists why he kept on running knowing that the race had been won hours earlier, he simply replied:

 

“My country did not send me to Mexico City to start the race. They sent me to finish.”

 

The Tanzania Olympic Committee (TOC) in the past month named 36 athletes and officials  to represent the country at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

 

Names from AT where Fabian Joseph, John Leonard, Alphonce Felix Simbu, Fabian Sulle , Wilbaldo Malley , Bazil John Baynit , along with AT secretary general Suleiman Nyambui.

 

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN