The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
Miguel Suleyman
29 June 2009
Athletes in the just ended National Athletics Championship failed to break Filbert Bayi's records set 35 years ago in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Held at the 60,000-seater National Stadium, the tournament saw Paschal Mombo of Arusha winning the 1500m race after clocking 3:48:28 minutes, which is 16 seconds slower than Bayi's records of 3:32:12.
"Our athletes don't consider middle distance races as important events. We are striving to revive both domains, but the runners go for long distance races," said Suleiman Nyambui, secretary general of the Tanzania Athletics (AT).
Dar es Salaam's Dickson Marwa who won 5000m race in 13: 39:34 minutes also failed to shatter the national record of 13:03.62 set by John Yuda three years ago.
Yuda, who emerged as a brilliant runner in the 2000s, broke Nyambui's records that stayed unbeaten for over two decades.
Arusha-based Fabian Joseph also finished far behind Yuda's second national record in 10,000m.
Joseph took 28:23:49 minutes to win the race. This is almost 1:30:00 minutes slower than Yuda's 27:07:17 minutes.
Another gruelling race was 10,000m won by Banuelia Brighton. The athlete clocked 35:42:54 points.
The time she registered was four minutes slower than Restituta Joseph's record of 2001. Joseph clocked 31:32:02 minutes in Villeneuve France.
Zanzibar runners have been dominating short distance races for over five years, however they failed to beat the 1970s records.
Zanzibar Urban West's Muhidin Yassin won the 100m race using 10:60 seconds, but could not outperform David Lukuba, Peter Mwita and Mwalimu Alli who spent 10.02 seconds.
The AT secretary harbours hopes that the revival of the Inter-Secondary School Games (UMISETA) will bring athletics back to its glorious era.
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