Rwanda’s 5.000m and10.000m female star Angéline Nyiransabimana is scheduled to undergo a one-month training stint in Italy.

An International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) coach, Joseph Ngure, based at the Eldoret High Performance Training Centre, Kenya confirmed the development yesterday according to Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper.

Ngure said six foreign athletes under the Olympic programme in the camp had been training for the last three years.

"We usually give our athletes a test of all the conditions so that they can tackle any international meet,” Ngure said.

Nyiransabimana, who is the lone Rwandan athlete at the training centre, will join five other athletes from Zambia, Malawi, Liberia, Gabon and Sri-Lanka in training at sea level next week.

Nyiransabimana trains at HPTC Eldoret under the sponsorship of Olympic Solidarity Scholarship. The 21-year-old, who is yet to secure the minimum qualification standards for this year’s Beijing Games is expected to take part in the yet to be confirmed European championship next month as part of her campaign to attain the Beijing Games minimum.

Rwanda National Olympic Committee (RNOC) Chef de Mission, Thierry Ntwali said this week that Nyiransabimana, Félix Ntirenganya and Slyvain Rukundo are the only targeted athletes set to benefit from the RNOC’s sponsorship in bid to attain Olympic marks next month.

"We will sponsor the trio next month in the yet to be known European championships so as to attain the minimum qualification standard for Beijing Games,” Ntwali said.

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