Achira bounces back, Police are favourites

All sport. Prisons and UPDF expected to dominate long and middle distance races but Police are likely to run away with the overall Inter Forces Games track and field title.

Sprinter Godfrey Achira will make his first competitive appearance since 2007 when the Inter Forces track and field competitions start at Namboole tomorrow.
Before he took a break from the track to undergo training with Uganda Police, Achira was one of the best sprinters in the country.

He now hopes to start from where he stopped. “I have been training strongly and I think I will do well,” Achira told Daily Monitor last week.

Now at the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Achira will link up with Ali Ngaimoko, Justine Bayiga and Emilly Nanziri in a strong Police team that is expected to dominate sprints and probaly clinch the overall track and field title in the Inter Forces Games. “We are going to give it our best,” Achira, the former Wandegeya DPC, added.

UPDF, with the likes of Simon Ayeko and Isaac Kiprop, will give Police a bloody nose in the middle and long distance races. Prisons will be led by national half marathon women’s champion Adero Nyakisi, Irene Chemusto and road running maestro Jackson Kiprop.
Although the Forces are competing in other games like football, handball, shooting and volleyball, athletics is expected to attract a decent crowd with many national runners in action. The games got underway with shooting at Kigo on Thursday.

Prisons will also hope that Olympic marathon champion Stephen Kiprotich suspends his training in Kenya and represents them. Elsewhere, Julius Achon has received Shs25m from Uganda Motor Care Company and Kjaer Group, a Denmark-based organization, for having the best charity in Uganda.

“I am really honoured,” Achon said after receiving the cheque. “I am going to use this money to build the doctors’ quarters at the health center that I recently opened in my village,” the runner, who heads Achon Children’s Foundation, said.

His foundation, which supports about 36 children, beat over 600 organizations to get the money. Achon has also awarded scholarships to four primary school runners.