Tanzania's hope to win Olympics medals now rest on five athletes
What you need to know:
- With Andrew Mlugu's loss to Frenchman Gaba in the round of 16 in Judo and Collins Saliboko not advancing in the 100-meter freestyle swimming competition, all hopes now lie on the remaining five competitors.
Dar es Salaam. Tanzania has suffered another blow in the ongoing Paris Olympic Games in France as swimmer Collins Saliboko did not advance to the next stage in the 100 metres freestyle yesterday.
Tanzania judoka Andrew Mlugu was the first to be eliminated in the super middleweight category by 10-0 against Frenchman Joan Benjamin Gaba in a one-sided match.
Saliboko, who was in heat two, was yesterday placed seventh after recording 56.38 seconds against eight challengers at the Paris La Defense Arena swimming pool. His score time is 1.16 seconds behind his seed time.
The event saw Ovesh Purahoo of Mauritius emerge at the top after recording 52.95, followed by Nixon Hernandez of El Salvador with a time of 52.73. Antoine de Lapparent of Cameroon was third after recording 52.95, while Irvin Hoost of Suriname was placed fourth after finishing at 52.99.
Bangladesh’s Islam Samiul Rafi was placed fifth after recording 53.10, while Hemed Samir Issa Al Adawi of Oman came in sixth at 53.19. The bottom-placed swimmer in the heat was Libyan Yousef Abubakar, who recorded 56.19.
As of the result, Saliboko is now ranked 71st out of 79 swimmers, having collected 676 points.
To advance, Collins needed to secure a spot among the top 16 swimmers out of a total of 79 in the freestyle category. Qualified swimmers ahead of the finals include Jack Alex of the United States (955 points), Maxime Grousset of France (945 points), David Popovici of Romania (935 points), Nandor Nemeth of Hungary (934 points), and Jordan Crooks of the Cayman Islands (929 points). Also on the list are Kyle Chalmers of Australia (935 points), Alessandro Miressi of Italy (916 points), and Chris Guiliano of the United States (916 points).
Others include Josha Salchow of Germany (916 points), Andrej Barna of Serbia (910 points), Josh Liendo of Canada (910 points), Guiherme Santos of Brazil (910 points), Zhanie Pan of China (907 points), Matthew Richards of Great Britain (907 points), Velimir Stjepanovic of Serbia (907 points), and Sunwoo Hwang of Korea (906 points).
Tanzania’s hopes to win medals now remain with five sportsmen and women: Sophia Latiff, a female swimmer, who will compete in the 50 meters freestyle category on August 3, and runners Alphonce Felix and Gabriel Geay who will compete in the men’s marathon on August 11.
Female runners Magdalena Shauri and Jackline Juma Sakilu will compete in the women’s marathon on August 10.
