EDITORIAL: Athletes should bring honour to Tanzania

The government has told the Tanzanian representatives to the IAAF World Championships 2017 in London that they must restore the lost glory in athletics.

The minister for Information, Culture, Arts and Sports, Harrison Mwakyembe, is aware that Tanzania has bungled umpteen times in recent decades. That is bad for the country whose athletics performance in the 1970s was superb.

However, Tanzania’s team currently in the UK is arguably the best Athletics Tanzania has ever fielded at any international championship in the recent past and medals are expected to be won.

The team underwent adequate preparations before especially after MultiChoice Tanzania donated Sh15 million.

In the eight-member squad, there are four medallists from high-profile competitions, who are in good shape.

Athletics prodigy Felix Simbu, who won a gold medal at the 2017 Mumbai Marathon in India six months ago, is one of them. The rest of the squad are also buoyant.

Aware of high expectations from millions of sports back home, they have promised to end the country’s medal drought at the world’s most prestigious athletics championship. Long-distance athlete Christopher Isegwe won the country’s first ever medal (silver) at the championship in 2005 in Helsinki, Finland.

Running against some of the world’s finest marathoners, Isegwe put up a brave fight. He finished second behind Morocco’s Jaouad Gharib in the men’s marathon. He was only eleven seconds adrift of the winner. Unfortunately, Tanzanian runners’ efforts to repeat that memorable feat have always ended miserably.

But we believe this will be the best chance for our athletes to showcase the country’s prowess at the global event, which officially roared into life yesterday. We believe they will not let us down this time around.

While we wish the team well, their rivals, especially from Ethiopia, Kenya, United States and Britain, are not sleeping either, and our boys and girls should not expect medals at a silver platter.