Israel Saria
The Tanzania Olympic Committee (TOC) has named Hassan Jalafu as the country’s leader of delegation during the Olympic Games to be held in London in July this year.
TOC secretary general Filbert Bayi said Jalafu, who is the deputy board chair of the committee, will lead the Tanzanian athletes and officials at the Games.
Bayi said currently there are only two athletes who have qualified for the games. Boxing will have to qualify for the London Games at their Africa qualifying games to be staged in Morocco.
While if swimming athletes fails to qualify only two will participate on solidarity tickets.
Bayi however said that his committee will have a full number of athletes from all disciplines in May and also said they were planning to go in camp the same months for final preparations.
He said his association has identified Bradford University in Leeds , UK as a place to have their camp , he was non committal on the days of the camp saying it will depends on the number of local athletes who will qualify for the games .
“Chances are we might camp in England at Bradford University in Leeds, am not sure of the date for the camp and also the number of athletes who will camp but if many Tanzanians qualifies for the games we will stay there for one months, but if few qualifies we will be there for two months, its my hope that the camp will help us to acclimatize with the weather of England” he said
He also said if his association fails to make necessary arrangements for the camping in time they will just camp as the Olympic village in the Uk , he said The Games’ Village is expected to be opened on 16 July, 11 days before the start of the Olympic Games.
Bayi who is a former international runner himself said chances of local athletes performing well at the games are very minimal, he said the country is doing very little to promote sports in the country.
He said the country sports authorities must accept that there is a need to have another generation of athletes as the current one is phasing out due to age and other factors.
Bayi attributed this to the ban of sports programs at all schools some years ago , he said the ban affected the continuous program which was designed to promote sports in the country .
“ Since the banning of sports programs in our schools the country has experienced lack of committed and serious sports men, there is a gap that is exist in development of sports in the country and you must know that the current sports stars are phasing out ” he said
He also said though the government re introduced sports programs in the country schools , very few is being done to promote and sustain the program ,Bayi said if this will go un checked the country risk to remain on the bottom of all sport activities .
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