The athletes who carried the national flag at the world championships are Fabian Joseph, Alphonce Felix, Ismail Juma and Ezekiel Jaffary
Dar es Salaam. Legendary runner Filbert Bayi has jumped to the defence of Tanzanian athletes who flopped at the on-going World Athletics Championships in Beijing.
Tanzania was represented by four long-distance runners at the global meet, but the quartet had nothing interesting to write home about. They came a cropper.
The athletes who carried the national flag at the world championships are Fabian Joseph, Alphonce Simbu, Ismail Juma and Ezekiel Jaffary, who competed in marathon.
Juma was the only Tanzanian in the 10,000-metre event, but could not finish the gruelling race.
Simbu was the best placed Tanzanian after he crossed the finish line 12th while Jafary and Joseph finished in the 27th and 42nd position respectively.
However, Bayi, who is the Tanzania Olympic Committee (TOC) secretary general, says the quartet deserve compliment rather than criticism.
“It is easy to blame them because they didn’t win medals, but we must understand that our representatives did many things on their own. They did not get the needed support from the government for such a big tournament,” the 1980 Olympic silver winner said.
“They sought qualification marks without assistance from local sports top organs and also trained for the championships on their own, so they certainly deserve compliments even though they did not win medals.
“You can’t harbour high expectations on athletes who did not have enough means to train at the world-class level. I for one, respect their efforts.”
Bayi, who holds multiple medals in various events, said it was high time the government supported athletes ahead of world-class tournaments.
“If we want to regain our lost pride in athletics, then the government should assist the athletes, otherwise they will not win a single medal in international events.
“There is a stark contrast in the way our athletes are prepared for big events. Kenya, Jamaica, Ethiopia, US and others assist their athletes in various aspects and that is why they win medals at almost every international tournament,” he added.
“We can apportion blame on our athletes only if they enjoyed support from the process of attaining qualifying marks to preparation stage.”
Meanwhile, two Kenyans failed pre-competition drug tests at the world championships in Beijing yesterday and have been provisionally suspended, the IAAF announced.
Koki Manunga and Joyce Zakary “have accepted provisional suspensions following positive samples provided in Beijing on August 20 and 21 respectively,” the IAAF said in a statement.
Track and field’s world governing body said the Kenyan pair had been tested at the athletes’ hotel before their competition started as part of “targeted tests”.
Zakary clocked a national record of 50.71 seconds in Monday’s first round of the women’s 400m at the Bird’s Nest, but did not start the semi-final on Tuesday for which she had qualified. African silver medallist Manunga, however, failed to make it out of her first round of the 400m hurdles on Sunday, timing 58.96sec to finish 35th out of 37 athletes competing.
