Coach Henk Botha yesterday confirmed that Namibia’s Tokyo Olympics 200m finalist Beatrice Masilingi has fully recovered from ill health.
She will however, still not feature in this weekend’s World Athletics Continental Gold Tour slated for Kenya.
Also known as the Kip Keino Classic, the Kenyan leg of the World Athletics Continental Gold Tour will take place this coming Saturday at the Moi International Sports Centre in Nairobi. It will mark the second edition of the event, with the inaugural edition having taken place last year.
Speaking to this publication yesterday, Botha explained that although Masilingi has fully recovered from poor health that saw her miss out on the recent Diamond League final as well as the Tuesday’s Continental Tour in Croatia, he does not want to quickly throw her back into the deep end of things without taking cautionary steps.
In her recent absence, her teammate and Tokyo Olympics silver medallist Christine Mboma claimed both the Diamond League and Croatia’s Continental Tour meeting 200m titles.
With the Kip Keino Classic set for Saturday, Masilingi will again out of caution be forced to watch from the bench as her ‘part in crime’ Mboma will seek to round off a perfect year with another win in Kenya.
“She [Masilingi] has really fully recovered, but we will have to call it a season where she will have a month and a half of rest before we return to training again. We do not think she will quickly catch up now for another major race, that’s why we think it is best for her to continue resting. We are, however, thinking of letting her run in the indoor season, especially in the 60m events, which will be great to get her body slowly but surely up and going again,” explained Botha.
The Kip Keino Classic, named after Kenyan track and field legend and Olympian Kipchoge Keino, continues to grow in leaps and bounds and will this weekend again see some of the world’s top athletes converging in Nairobi to battle it out for top honours.
Besides 18-year-old Mboma, other top foreign athletes coming for the Kip Keino Classic are Tokyo Olympics men and women's 3 000m steeplechase champions Soufiane El Bakkali from Morocco and Uganda's Peruth Chemutai, Tokyo Olympics hammer throw champion Wojciech Nowicki and Olympics 100m silver medallist Fred Kerley.
America’s three-time world 100m champion Justin Gatlin and the fastest 100m man this season Bromell Trayvon are also coming to the one-day Kip Keino Classic, alongside Commonwealth Games 400m champion Isaac Makwala of Botswana and World U/20 200m bronze medallist South Africa's Sinesipho Dambile.
-mkambukwe@nepc.com.na