Tanzania Fire Blanks at Olympics
YET again, Tanzania has failed to win a medal in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, which ended yesterday.
Tanzania sent three representatives, all of whom were marathoners, Alphonce Simbu, Failuna Abdi Matanga and Gabriel Geay.
Despite not winning a medal, Simbu made it into the top ten by finishing seventh in the 42 km full marathon while Geay did not finish the race. On the women’s side, Matanga completed 24th place.
On yesterday’s results, Simbu finished the race at 2:11:35 when Kenyan athlete Eliud Kipchoge successfully defended his men’s Olympic marathon title.
Kipchoge, 36, is now the third runner to win back-to-back gold medals in the Olympic men’s marathon, joining Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila (1960, 1964) and East Germany’s Waldemar Cierpinski (1976, 1980).
Kipchoge finished the race in 2:08:38, followed by silver medalist Abdi Nageeye from the Netherlands with a record of 2:09:58. The bronze medalist was Bashir Abdi from Belgium, who finished at 2:10:00.
Fourth place was taken by Kenyan Lawrence Cherono, who clocked 2:10:02 Ayad Lamdassem took fifth place from Spain, who finished in 2:10:16.
Sixth place was taken by Suguru Osako from Japan, who finished in 2:10:41. This is Simbu’s second time finishing in the top 10 of the Olympic Games.
He competed for Tanzania at the 2016 Summer Olympics in the men’s marathon fifth with a time of 2:11.15. Thus he failed to break his record, as he was 20 seconds late from the previous Olympic Games.
The Games were completed yesterday, and the United States of America have been crowned overall winners in this year’s Games after collecting 113 medals.
USA collected 39 gold, 41 silver and 33 bronze medals. The People’s Republic of China took the second place with 88 medals, of which 38 were gold, 32 silver and 18 bronze.
The Japanese (hosts) are in third place after recording 58 medals, including 27 gold, 14 silver and 17 bronze medals. The fourth place is Great Britain; with 65 medals where gold is 22, silver 21 and bronze 22. Russia Olympic Committee is fifth, with a total of 71 medals.
They have won 20 gold, 28 silver and 23 bronze medals. On the African side, Kenya took the lead while taking 19th place in the world ranking.
They collected ten medals in which four were gold and silver each; and two bronze. Uganda are second in African ranking while 36th in the world ranking.
They collected four medals in which two were gold, one silver and bronze each. The Republic of South Africa took third in Africa and 52nd in the world ranking after collecting gold and two silver medals.
On the overall individual medal winner, Emma McKeon from Australia won seven medals in which three were gold and three bronze, all in the swimming category.
Caeleb Dressel from the USA followed after picking five medals, whereas all were gold. Other top medalists were Kaylee McKeown (Australia), Yufei Zhang (China), Kathleen Ledecky (USA), Ariarne Titmus (Australia) and Duncan Scott (Great Britain); they all collected four Medals.
By Daily News.
