AT president, Anthony Mtaka

Athletics Tanzania (AT) will not host the East and Central African championships as previously planned due to lack of time to prepare for the international event as they received information of hosting the event very late.

The newly elected AT president, Anthony Mtaka, complained that his association received the letter requesting them to host the event very late.

Time has been highly unfriendly to meet logistics and prepare the event. Most of the AT officials were fully engaged in election campaigns and missed sufficient time to engage in the preparations of the event.

Mtaka said the decision not to host the event was reached at AT extra ordinary meeting held in Dar es Salaam recently.

AT has written to the Confederation of East and Central African Athletics informing them the latest development over hosting the event.

“We have communicated with the confederation informing them on our inability to host the event. This has been done because we did not have enough time to prepare for the tourney,” he said.

Mtaka hopes that the confederation will choose another country in the region to host the event.

The chairman also hinted that it will be very difficult for Tanzania to send its athletes to the event should another country opt to host the championships.

The annual event attracted athletes from ten countries of the region when it was successfully staged last year.

Previous AT leadership had chosen June 16 to host the event for two days and already there has been a tremendous response.

Countries that had shown interest to field their athletes include Egypt, Djibouti, Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Zanzibar and hosts Tanzania Mainland.