Kenya to host third leg of inaugural African Athletic Tour in May

NAIROBI, April 23 (Xinhua) -- Kenya will host the third leg of the inaugural African Athletic Tour on May 19, a senior athletics official announced on Monday.

Paul Mutwii, Athletics Kenya (AK) Senior Vice-President in Charge of Competitions, said the day-long meet will be for selection of athletes who will compete in designated track and field events along the lines of the Diamond League athletics competitions.

"The objective of the event is to have athletes within the continent compete against and get to know each other because most of them hardly have time to encounter one another," Mutwii said on Monday.

The tour is a pan-African circuit of five meetings which was created this year by the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) in close collaboration with the federations of South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and Congo.

The first leg was held in Cape Town, South Africa on March 22, and the second series took place in Asaba, Nigeria on May 9.

The Congolese capital Brazzaville will stage the event on May 26 after which Addis Ababa in Ethiopia will wrap up the tour on June 17.

Mutwii defended Kenya's performance in athletics at the recently-concluded Commonwealth Games that was held in Gold Coast, Australia, questioning why pessimists are saying that the performance was below par.

"Those people who are saying that athletes should have won more medals forget that all the laurels the country won came only from athletics, out of 15 disciplines Kenya competed in at the games," he said.

Kenya won four gold medals, seven silver medals and four bronze medals during the quadrennial event. Enditem