Nigeria’s rave of the moment in long distance race, Aderonke Olumudi, has confirmed her readiness to partake at the third edition of the annual Okpekpe 10km Road Race.
The Kogi-born athlete, who has been in a rich form since moving to the United States of America, recently won the 10km women’s category of the third GE Irving Marathon race. She had earlier won women’s silver medal at the fifth Longview Marathon on March 14, and bronze at the 21st edition of the Bearathon Marathon races on March 13.
“I am ready to race at the Okpekpe,” she said. “I was at the first edition of the competition, and I am ready to be the first Nigerian to win the race.
“My target for now will be to perform well at the Lake Minneola Half Marathon billed for April 25, and hopefully take the form to Nigeria for the Okpekpe race.”
The Okpekpe 10km road race is organised by Pamodzi Sports Marketing, a sports marketing, sponsorship, hospitality and rights acquisition firm in Nigeria, in conjunction with the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) and Edo state government.
The previous editions of the race were dominated by East Africans from Kenya, with Nigerian athletes yet to finish top five of the race.
Meanwhile, the Athletics Kenya (AK) has suspended two of the country’s leading track and field agents, Rosa Associati and Volare Sports, for six months, within which the federation expects investigations into the managers’ role in the positive doping cases and other rule violations will be complete.
AK also announced the closure of the Keringet training camp ran by former national cross-country team coach, Charles Ng’eno, who has in the past used training programmes designed by one of the most successful athletics coaches, Italian Renato Canova. It banned the local tactician from handling any athlete indefinitely.
Rosa Associati camp managed by Italian Federico Rosa, the coach of banned marathoner, Rita Jeptoo, who is currently serving a two-year suspension for EPO, handles several Kenyan athletes, including reigning world champions, Eunice Sum (800m) and Asbel Kiprop (1,500m) is being probed by the AK Medical and Doping Commission, the newly established anti- doping agency of Kenya and the Kenya Police as he had three top level runners implicated in doping in the last four years.
AK cracked the whip on Gerard Van de Veen of the Netherlands under Volare Sports who manages the reigning world marathon record holder, Dennis Kimmeto, for purportedly violating unspecified AK rules.
Kipsang was last November warned publicly by AK for skipping a mandatory out of competition doping test and he was said not to have informed the federation of his whereabouts.
The 2013 London marathon champion is also the chairman of the Professional Athletics Association of Kenya, a body that has been pushing for the resignation of the AK boss over various issues including the upsurge in doping cases locally.
Federico said he was yet to receive any official communication from AK and as soon as he gets it, he would challenge the suspension in court, while Van de Veen requested for time to settle as he had “just arrived home from an oversees trip”.
“The executive committee has decided to suspend two agents, so that investigations on various aspects can be carried out, and when the results are out, we shall consider whether they can be readmitted. For Rosa and Asssociati, it is clear. For Van de Veen, people will ask why? There are some cases within his camp that have violated AK rules that will be revealed by the investigations,” said AK President Isaiah Kiplagat who also announced that he would be stepping down from his role at the end of April 2015 as he seeks the IAAF Vice President’s post.
“They (the two agents) manage the highest number of athletes in the country, so we shall liaise with IAAF and promoters to agree on how we are going to manage these athletes that they don’t miss competition,” added Kiplagat, exercising the federations prerogative to clear agents who handle its runners who must also be cleared by AK before any races abroad.