Six named for African championships

The local athletics body, (RAF) has named a six-man squad to take part in the Africa senior Championships due in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from April 30-May 5.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

The local athletics body, (RAF) has named a six-man squad to take part in the Africa senior Championships due in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from April 30-May 5.

The squad includes three male and three female athletes namely; Slyvain Rukundo(10000m), Cyriaque Ndayikengurikiye(5000m), Musa Bizimana(400m), Jean d’Arc Uwamahoro(800m), Sophia Kanakuze(200m) and Angelline Nyiransabimana(10000m) respectively.

However, the country’s long distance icon, Dieudonne Disi has been left out of the team.

The RAF technical director, Emmanuel Murenzi told Times Sport yesterday that Disi was excluded because he was expecting to represent the Rwanda Defense Forces’ athletics team in the forthcoming World Military Games.

"The selection of the above athletes was based on their recent performances in recent national cross-country as well as last year’s international meetings," Murenzi said.

Murenzi further added that the selected athletes will use this occasion to battle for Olympic Games slots due in August this year.

"We only selected few athletes whom we thought might qualify for this year’s Beijing games. Our hope is fixed on the six athletes for Beijing Games,"

"If two or three athletes qualify for the Games in this championship, they would add make the tall of qualified athletes to four or five after Disi and Epiphanie Nyirabarame qualified for the Games," Murenzi added.

Rwanda never won any silverware in 2006 African senior championships held in Mauritius.

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