NAIROBI, March 16 (Xinhua) -- Retired Kenyan athlete Ruth Waithera, the first African woman to reach 400m Olympic final, on Saturday lamented at the drop in standards among current Kenyan sprinters, saying that the situation is worrisome.
Waithera, who entered the final at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, said that coaches have aggravated the situation by fighting over star athletes in order to make a name for themselves.
"Sprints ended in the 1980s and 1990s during our era. Unlike during our heyday when we stuck to only one coach, today's sprinters have succumbed to the fight for them by coaches and keep on hopping from one instructor to another," Waithera, 61, said during the second weekend relays meet in Nairobi.
Waithera finished eighth in the 400m and also reached the 200m semifinals at the Los Angeles 1984.
She is holding the national record of 400m, which she set in 1984 with a time of 51.56.
"Today, sprinters hardly last for more than two years because of indiscipline and the doping factor and because of the fear of being caught, unlike during our time when I was in top-flight competition for nine straight years," she told Xinhua.
The former African 400m record holder said that changing coaches is counterproductive because every coach come with their own tactics which brings confusion among the athletes owing to lack of consistency.
The weekend relay meets will culminate into national trials to select a team for the 2019 International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Relays scheduled for May in Yokohama, Japan.
