The 24-year-old clocked 2:11:15 hours to cross the finish line, a difference of 2:31 minutes from the gold winner.
The gold medal went to Kenyan Kipchoge Eliud who clocked 2:08:44.
Dar es Salaam. Marathoner Alphonce Felix Simbu came close to breaking Tanzania’s Olympic medal drought yesterday after finishing the 42-kilometre race fifth in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The 24-year-old clocked 2:11:15 hours to cross the finish line, a difference of 2:31 minutes from the gold winner.
The gold medal went to Kenyan Kipchoge Eliud who clocked 2:08:44.
Simbu’s finish is the best for the country in recent Olympic Games outings, signalling a bright future for the Arusha runner. The last time Tanzania won a medal at the Olympics was at the 1980 Moscow Games where Filbert Bayi (3,0000m, steeplechase) and Suleiman Nyambui (5,000m) bagged silver medals. Thirty six years on, Tanzania has never replicated the performance of the legendary runners. Until halfway the gruelling race, Simbu and Eliud were separated by a second, but the Kenyan broke away at the 35km mark and romped home to win ahead of Ethiopia’s Feyisa Lilesa, who took silver. American Galen Rupp claimed bronze in 2:10:05.
Simbu’s countrymen Saidi Makula and Fabiano Joseph finished in the 43rd and 112th places, respectively.
Yesterday’s failure summed up Tanzania’s participation at the 2016 Summer Olympics after Sarah Ramadhan (women’s marathon), Andrew Mlugu (judo) Hilal Hilal and Magdalena Moshi (swimmers) kissed goodbye.
In the shadow of the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue, poking through the rain clouds from high above the city, Kipchoge produced a virtuoso performance as he added gold to the 5,000m silver he won in Beijing in 2008 and his bronze from Athens 2004. It was a seventh victory in eight marathons for the 31-year-old phenomenon, who won the London Marathon for the second year running in April, coming within eight seconds of Dennis Kimetto’s world record of 2:02:57. A morning downpour put paid to any thoughts of a world record as 155 runners representing 80 countries splashed around the course snaking through the heart of Rio’s historic centre in conditions miles removed from the holiday brochures of sun-kissed Rio.
