IAAF World Half Marathon gold medalist is Lagos City Marathon early bird
Lobi Stars striker, Anthony Okpotu has said the Home-based Super Eagles will return home and work on the mistakes that denied them the 2018 CHAN trophy.
On Sunday, the Home-based Super Eagles lost 0-4 to host country Morocco in the finals of this year’s Africa Nations Championship.
Although the Eagles put up a spirited fight, the Atlas Lions made judicious use of their numerical advantage after Plateau United’s Moses Eneji was sent off early in the second half.
Okpotu told Daily Trust yesterday that even as the defeat is painful, there is no need crying over spilled milk for so long.
He said the players will return to their respective clubs in the Nigerian Professional Football League to work on their mistakes in order to become better players.
“It is quite unfortunate that we lost the final match. We did our but it was not good enough. A former IAAF World Half Marathon Champion Godfrey Chirchir Kiprotich will be one the first international elite runners to arrive for the 2018 Access Bank Lagos City Marathon.
Kiprotich will arrive on Wednesday with Ethiopian Airline.
A product of the popular St. Patrick High School, a school renowned for producing successful distance runners, Kiprotich grew up running barefoot and alongside his training partner Evans Rutto they achieved many feats on the road.
Kiprotich has served as pacemaker to Rutto at a number of marathons, including the 2003 Chicago Marathon, which Rutto won, the Chicago Marathon, New York City Marathon, the Los Angeles Marathon, Country Music Marathon and the Dubai Marathon.
Also arriving on Wednesday is Eliud Matu Weru. The Access Bank Lagos City Marathon General Manager Yussuf Alli said most of the foreign elite athletes and the Nigerian elites most of them from the Northern part of Nigeria will arrive on Wednesday.
Alli said the 2018 field was very rich and he would expect a new record for the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon,
“Starting at 6.30am will give the runners a huge advantage as they would have covered a lot of ground before the sun rises,” he said
Alli also stated that top officials of the IAAF and AIMS would arrive same Thursday,
“We are now a label race so everything we do is of special interest to the IAAF, the governing body of athletics in the world and AIMS. Our biggest selling points are our route which is very smooth and the crowd, so the world will be looking up to Lagos this weekend’’
Alli appealed to Lagosians to be nice to visitors and come out in their thousands to cheer the runners.