Beijing was our rehearsal for Rio - UAF president

By Norman Katende in Beijing

Uganda Athletics Federation president Domenic Otuchet believes that the results from the 2015 Beijing IAAF World Athletics Championships are an eye opener to what they need to correct, before the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

Uganda won a bronze medal courtesy of Solomon Mutai in the men’s marathon to finish among the top 37 of the 177 countries that competed in the biennial event.

But unlike other countries, Team Uganda’s financing was so strained that the group travelled with only $100 (sh350,000) as contingency money to cater for eventualities for the 11 athletes who spent 10 days in the Chinese capital.

“We are trying hard but without funds, we cannot deliver as well as we want. We could not raise enough funds for the team to go to camp and this was to be reflected by the general performance. We had to struggle to even give them the basic allowances but it’s good that the athletes understood the situation,” said Otuchet.

“We were thinking that we could access the annual grant offered by the president as that would have driven us further but we are still failing to access it. The only alternative was to borrow to facilitate the national team,” added Otuchet.

Defending champion Stephen Kiprotich finished sixth in the men’s, marathon while Timothy Toroitich finished eighth in the men’s 10000m to boost Uganda’s ranking.

“The solution is to enter camp early and monitor athletes’ performance. But without funds, there is no way we can enter camp and train like a team. I am hoping that we will have something like four months training ahead of the Rio Olympics next year,” added coach Benjamin Longiross as the team prepared to fly out of Beijing.

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