Candid Kipsiro dropped from World Half Marathon team

Kampala.
Moses Kipsiro will not compete in the World Half Marathon Championships due in Denmark’s capital Copenhagen on Saturday.
The Uganda Athletics Federation has found it otherwise to drop the star runner from the national team.

His crime? Blowing the lid off the sexual harassment accusations against a coach during Team Uganda’s training camp for the recently concluded Africa Cross-country Championships.

During camp in Bukwo, junior female athletes accused one of the three male coaches of advising them to have sex and get pregnant in order to run better. The scandal has become the hottest topic in Ugandan sport but authorities have still not reprimanded the accused coach.

Having finished fourth at the National Half Marathon in Mbale on February 8, Kipsiro had earned his ticket to Copenhagen for Saturday’s event but he will now watch on television thanks to his openness about the sex scandal.
“I have been told I can’t travel but it’s okay. I have been given a funny excuse, I don’t even want to talk about it,” Kipsiro, who was in Bukwo as five runners were flagged off to Denmark yesterday, said.

“I love representing my country and will do so whenever called upon. “But if am being punished for trying to save careers and lives of young athletes, it’s unfair. But God is my judge.
National coach Gordon Ahimbisibwe said he is the one who advised the federation to leave him out of the team because he is yet to recover from sickness.

“He had malaria, typhoid, brucella during the Africa Cross-country. I felt he needed to recover fully before competing. There are many races ahead for him ahead,” Ahimbisibwe said.
After the Kololo event, Kipsiro took some time off but was ordered to join the rest of the team in camp on Saturday. He did exactly that and was planning to travel from Bukwo to Kampala to pick his ticket to Denmark. It has now been taken by Geoffrey Kusuro.

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