Nairobi — Athletics Chiefs have been urged to start strategising for the Olympics Games now to regain lost ground in middle and distance running.

Legendary Kipchoge Keino, also chairman of National Olympic Committee of Kenya (Nock), said Athletics Kenya should by now have identified a sponsor to facilitate a brainstorming clinic where plans for the Games will be discussed.

"(Athletics) officials, a few top athletes and other stakeholders should meet now and say how they want to prepare for the Games," said Keino.

"If you ask me today, I will tell you that the marathon team was named too early because it demoralises athletes. But now that they have been named, they should not run any marathon race until the Games in August," Keino said.

Keino was talking to East African Standard in an exclusive interview at a Nairobi hotel during a dinner hosted by Kenya Cricket Association (KCA) in honour of visiting International Cricket Council (ICC) President Ehsan Mani.

Turning to the performance at the recent World Cross Country Championships in Brussels last month, Keino took issue with the appointment of Patrick Sang' as the head coach, saying he is associated with a Dutch athletics agency sponsored by a leading shoe manufacturing firm.

"There was a clear conflict of interest because Sang' is associated with the agency, whose majority of athletes are from Ethiopia, who are our main rivals in distance running," said Keino.

But Athletics Kenya chairman, Isaiah Kiplagat dismissed Keino's remarks as 'day dreaming'. He challenged Nock to say what they are doing to prepare the teams for the Olympics.

"All they do is wait until we have selected teams then they impose a chef de mission who has nothing to do with sports on us. They should be asking all disciplines to give them probables to put into camp early as other NOCs do," said Kiplagat.

He said the issue of Patrick Sang' has nothing to do with the performance at the World Cross, but his short-listing for a job at the IAAF/IOC High Performance Training Centre, which he alleged Keino is trying to resist.

Meanwhile, Kenyan athletes Peter Kiprotich and Jason Mbote paced Dutch Luc Krotwaar to qualify for the Olympics at the Fortis Rotterdam Marathon on Sunday.

Krotwaar, who is a member of the High Altitude Training Camp in Iten, qualified for the Olympic Marathon in Athens by finishing the Rotterdam race in seventh position in 2:11:56.,

Krotwaar ran 2:10:13 last December in Fukuoka but had to show this year that he is in the right shape. The " B " limit for Krotwaar was 2:13. The plan was to run a time between 2:08 and 2:09 but the tough conditions, very strong wind, made this impossible and Luc had to change his plans after 25K. He did the first half in 1:04:20. His seventh position made him the sixth time Dutch marathon champion.

Mbote ran upto 35km and dropped out. Kiprotich, who used Rotterdam as his marathon debut, finished the race in fourth place in 2:11:52.