Epiphanie Nyirabarame beat the minimum qualification mark for the Games as she clocked 2.41.33 to finish eleventh in the Rome Marathon in Italy over the weekend. Rwanda’s long distance queen joins Dieudonne Disi as the only Rwandan athletes to qualify for the Beijing Olympic Games. Kenyan Kemboi Chelimo and Algerian Ait Salem Saoud won the male and female categories clocking 2.09.36 and 2.25.07 respectively. Nyirabarame who will take part in the 42km marathon race in Beijing in August beat the minimum mark of 2.42.00 to successfully confirm her participation in the Beijing Games scheduled for August 8-24 in China. Disi was the first Rwandan athletes to qualify. He achieved his mark during last year’s Memorial Van Damme race in Belgium where he attained the standard ‘A’ time of 27:50.00 with his personal best of 27:22:23 (in 10.000m). A beaming Rwanda Athletics Federation technical director Emmanuel Murenzi told Times Sport yesterday that he expects more athletes to qualify for the Beijing Games during the African Championship due to be held in Ethiopia in late April. Rwanda will be represented by five disciplines at this year’s Olympic Games. They include; Athletics, boxing, Swimming, cycling and Paralympics. The boxing team is expected to battle for qualifying slots during the second round of African Olympic qualifying round due in Windhoek, Namibia from March 22-April 2. In 2004 Athens Games, Jean de Dieu Nkundabera won Rwanda’s first ever Olympics medal (bronze) in the 800 meters. Ends
