TANZANIA athletes Mohamed Msenduki and Faustine Mussa left yesterday morning for Moscow, Russia where they will take part in the ongoing IAAF World Athletics Championships.
The duo left at 3.00am and will join Athletics Tanzania (AT) President Anthony Mtaka and coach Francis John who are already there. “Msenduki and Mussa have already left for Moscow and will have at least three days for acclimatization and final preparations,” AT secretary general Suleiman Nyambui said on Tuesday.
“They will both compete in marathon on Saturday, a day before the championships end,” he added. Tanzania had earlier planned to send four athletes but veteran Zakia Mrisho and youngster John David were dropped due to various reasons, including sickness and failure to attain qualifying marks.
The country has participated in all the previous championships but it has succeeded in winning a medal only once. For the first time in the tournament’s history, a Tanzanian marathoner Christopher Isegwe finished second at the 2005 edition in Helsinki, Finland and placed the country in 26th position.
Isegwe produced a fine performance to win a silver medal in a new personal best time of 2 hours 10 minutes and 21 seconds. He trailed Moroccan Jaouad Gharib, who won the race in 2:10:10 and was ahead of third placed Tsuyoshi Ogota of Japan who clocked 2:11:56.
Apart from the silver, Isegwe received a $30,000 cash prize which swelled his purse and ranked him among the highly paid athletes in the country by then. Since then Tanzanian athletes have been mere passengers in the train and have never achieved anything in the world athletics championships.
Eleven athletes – 10 men and one female – represented the country at the 12th Championships held in Berlin, Germany from August 15-23, 2009. They were Fabiano Joseph (5,000m and 10,000m), Marco Joseph (5,000m), Dickson Marwa and Ezekiel Jafari (10,000m), Getuli Bayo, Lucian Hombo, Christopher Isengwe, Andrea Silivin and Phaustin Baha (marathon) and Zakia Mrisho (women’s 5,000m).
They all returned home empty handed. At the 13th championships held in Daegu, South Korea from August 27 to September 4, 2011, the country fielded only one athlete, Zakia Mrisho, who also came back without a medal after finishing 11th in the women’s 5,000m final.