When President Jakaya Kikwete expressed concerns early in 2011 that Tanzanian athletes were under-performing at international events, he had a point.
Tanzanian runner Christopher Isegwe competes in one of the interntional events.
The president cautioned athletes against parading excuses when he was receiving the Queen’s relay baton at the State House in Dar es Salaam.
He advised athletes against presenting excuses but strive to win medals. Today, with less than a year to go before the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, preparations by various sports associations are in disarray and there are no tangible arrangements that can enable Tanzania to bag medals at the quadrennial event. It is even not clear how many athletes and officials will represent Tanzania in the quadrennial event that brings together athletes from all Commonwealth member states.
The Tanzania Olympic Committee (TOC) Secretary General, Filbert Bayi, was quoted by a local newspaper on Wednesday as saying that three sports associations were likely to miss the games.
The list of sports likely to miss out on the multi-sport event includes local athletes with a range of physical and intellectual disabilities, swimmers and tennis players. Bayi said the Tanzania Swimming Association (TSA), Tanzania Table Tennis Association (TTTA) and Tanzania Paralympic Committee (TPC) have violated instructions to reveal shortterm training programmes for their respective teams.
“Earlier this month, we instructed all sports bodies wishing to field athletes at the Glasgow Games to submit to the TOC offices their shotterm training programmes, but the three associations never bothered to comply with the instructions,” he said.
Bayi named Athletics Tanzania (AT), Boxing Federation of Tanzania (BFT), Tanzania Netball Association (Chaneta), Tanzania Cycling Association (TCA), Judo and weightlifting associations that have so far complied with its instructions. But Tanzania’s netball team has been ruled out of the Glasgow games. In the previous event held from October 3 to 14 in New Delhi, India Tanzania sent a total of 30 athletes.
They were drawn from Paralympics, table tennis, swimming as well as traditional sportsathletics and boxing. There was an inclusion of two sports disciplines, from the 2006 Melbourne Games, when only athletics, boxing and Paralympics carried the Tanzanian flag at the event.
We understand that with a shoe-string budget, sports associations will definitely struggle to attach great importance to the preparations and fine-tune to the satisfaction of the athletes, administrators and sports lovers in general. But what is shocking is the fact that as always, sports envoys are relaxed and do not seem to have a sense of urgency and seriousness regarding the Commonwealth games.
It is a pity that they are virtually on holiday with no measure of responsibility being exhibited. They are just insensitive. When it is the hope of every Tanzanian to see compatriots excel in the various sports disciplines, they are being let down by the lackluster showing, as a result of inertia on the part of administrators who do not seem to have favourable prescriptions for preparations.
What is now happening is that, the non-entities who were not as competent as we were, have surpassed us and are now shining. This trend should be reversed and the only way is for the administrators to get their act together in restoring the lost glory. This is why Bayi lambasted the associations for solely banking on the Committee’s one month residential camp, which he said is meant for final touches and other logistics.
That is not the period when athletes should be preparing for the “Club Games” but is the time to check on the progress that has been made by individual associations and athletes. It is wrong to over-burden the TOC whose mandate is well known. The TOC should be assisted by the associations to ensure that what is expected of them is done to the best of their abilities and not to hope that they would work on improving the fitness of athletes, which is the sole responsibility of the mother-bodies.
Because of seriousness in grooming athletes, we have examples of the success stories of legends such as Filbert Bayi and the late middleweight pugilist Titus Simba. Time and again the sports fraternity have been called upon to start training early to enable the country send a strong medal-winning team to the Games, but this call seems to be falling on deaf ears.
Therefore, Kikwete’s observation was indeed another reminder that there was need to give the teams lined up for the games good preparations to achieve good results from the highly competitive tournament but still nothing has been done.
The country’s reputation is at stake here and only good preparations within the remaining little time will help form a winning outfit. Sports associations, TOC and the ministry responsible for sports must start joint serious preparations for the games now.
By NASONGELYA KILYINGA, Tanzania Daily News
