Shocking: Uganda sends wrong coach to Olympics

KAMPALA.

Benjamin Longiross and Benjamin Njia are training Uganda’s bulk of Olympic-bound long distance runners in Kapchorwa, while Rafael Kasajja is taking care of three middle distance athletes of Ronald Musagala, Winnie Nanyondo and Halima Nakaayi at Namboole.

The first two coaches were in charge of athletics at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland and Africa Cross-country Championships in Cameroon four months ago respectively; while Kasajja still awaits his first major assignment outside the country.
However, none of the aforementioned coaches will travel with the team to Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Olympics, forthrightly discarding the rapport they will have built with the athletes over the weeks of training.

Faustino Kiwa is the man charged with coaching middle and long distance runners in Brazil while Grace Chesang – a former long distance athlete – will mainly handle the ladies.
Kiwa, a former 400m runner is not only a qualified coach, he is also an instructor. But that his forte is sprints, an area no Ugandan qualified for, and that he is not actively coaching the team, has raised eyebrows.

Yet Uganda Athletics Federation (UAF) president, Dominic Otucet, who is travelling to Rio as the athletics team manager (each discipline that has at least six athletes on the team is entitled to a manager), insists that Kiwa will do the job.

“He will do what Benjamin or Gordon Ahimbisibwe will have done,” Otucet told Daily Monitor via phone, “He will take care of the middle distance runners.

Italian connection
“Grace Chesang also has the ladies sorted, and we even have Giuseppe Giambrone, an Italian, who will coach long distance.”
Giambrone, who is facilitating himself, and Veronica Sampieri, the other Italian on the team as a physiotherapist, are part of a three-year deal Tuscany Camp signed with UAF late 2014 to provide medical assistance to Ugandan athletes, as well as train them. Further probed on why the coaches that are currently training the travelling athletes have not been a priority, Otucet saw no problem.

“Benjamin has not complained,” argued Otucet. “The thing is the naming of coaches was done much earlier and at that time, we had a long list of 42 athletes, only a few had qualified. “By the time qualification ended, it was too late and we couldn’t change the coaches. So, yes, Kiwa is what could have done this time.”

For a country that has qualified only two sprinters in the last 20 years, Justin Bayigga for Beijing 2008 and bronze medallist at 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Davis Kamoga, UAF had no business clutching in hope onto a sprints coach. A coach with most athletes on the team is normally given priority. Bigingo and Kasajja each have four athletes on the team.

While Kiwa is considered the head coach of Police, it is Njia who actively coaches the club, who have three athletes on the Ugandan team. Police have a camp in Kapchorwa where Njia is based full time. Kasajja had seven – half of the team – at the 2014 Commonwealth Games but it was instead Longiross who was taken. “I don’t mind even if I don’t go,” said Kasajja, “I’m working hard to have at least nine athletes qualify for the 2017 World Championships and we will take it from there.”

Kasajja first fell out with the UAF establishment in 2014 when he was deemed to be backing former world junior champion, Julius Achon, to wrest presidency from Otucet.

He was also vocal against the federation attempting to cover up for coach Peter Wemali, who was arrested on charges of aggravated defilement. One of the senior coaches, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of antagonising his relationship with UAF, said Kiwa used his influence as the federation organising secretary to secure the Brazil trip.

“It is very unfair but there is nothing we can do. We can’t openly criticise the selection as senior coaches,” he said.
Nalis Bigingo, Longiross and UPDF’s Gordon Ahimbisibwe are the most experienced middle/long distance coaches in the country. With 14 long distance runners heading to Rio, the general feeling in the athletics fraternity was that one of the three coaches would make the trip.
Kiwa said he was given the Olympics assignment by the team manager (Otucet). “I’m not the team manager. What he has told you is that. I cannot add or subtract. Go with that,” he said.

Heading to brazil
Faustino Kiwa. The sprints coach is going for Olympics with no sprinter on the team to coach.

Left behind
BENJAMIN LONGIROSS: A retired long distance runner, the UPDF soldier competed in marathon at the 1988 Olympics. He was coach when Moses Kipsiro finished fourth over 5,000 at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

GORDON AHIMBISIBWE: Although he did not compete up to Olympics level, the UPDF coach is respected by most elite long distance runners.

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