AK supremo Tuwei hails Meru County for staging organized race

Athletics Kenya president Retired General Jackson Tuwei has lauded the Meru County government for a ‘well organized’ mountain running event that was held at the foot of Mt Kenya over the weekend.

Tuwei pointed out that the huge attendance witnessed for the inaugural event was down to the level of organisation.

“This is very impressive from the county government of Meru and it’s something that has been planned very well. We need more of this across the country,” said Tuwei.

He however noted that most of the athletes who competed at the event weren’t well registered as elite competitors thus their times weren’t recorded as official despite putting in good performances.m

“I noticed some athletes were not registered officially as elites and so we couldn’t admit their timings. Next time we need to explain such details so as to have larger numbers of elite athletes,” he explained.

Being the inaugural championship in East Africa, Tuwei noted that the course was well worked although he noted there were improvements to be done for the next Championships. He pledged AK’s support to ensure the championship gets to international standards to attract more competitors from across Africa and the rest of the world.

“We sent our technical team here way earlier and they inspected the course and we were satisfied with what we found. It’s the first one and that means things aren’t perfect but we will keep working with the run organizers to ensure the course is elevated to international standards,” added Tuwei.

Some of the major areas of improvement that Tuwei noted were traffic control as well as the width of the course. He said it needed expansion so as to accommodate more runners and monitor cars since the numbers will keep growing each year.

Meru county governor Kiraitu Murungi thanked the AK president for the tremendous support they had given to ensure the inaugural championship was a success.

“I want to thank AK for being with us from when we shared our plans to hold this event. They have really helped us and they as well gazetted the race in the official AK calendar of events.”

A huge percentage of the proceeds raised will go into the development of the Meru Cancer Institute with the view of curbing the prevalence of the disease in the county.

Meru is ranked second behind Nairobi with regard to the number of cancer cases in Kenya.

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