Poor performance by runners at IAAF

Poor performance by runners at IAAF Namibia's five athletes who competed in the 2017 IAAF World Athletics Championships in London will return without any medals.

The athletes arrived in London last Tuesday for the biennial event which started at the Olympic Stadium on Friday.

The male marathon runners, Paulus Iiyambo and Reonard Namupala, were first to take on the champions early on Sunday. They finished 35th and 37th respectively, with Iyambo clocking a time of 2:19:45. Nampula set a seasonal best of 2.18:51.

The Namibians were beaten by Geoffrey Kipkorir Kirui of Kenya who won the race in a time of 2.08:27, followed by Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia and Alphonce Felix Simbu of Tanzania winning bronze.

Kirui extended his country's record as the most successful nation in the history of this event at the IAAF World Championships.

In the women's marathon, Helalia Johannes finished 19th on Sunday with a time of 2:26:09, which was her personal best.

Rose Chelimo from Bahrain took gold and earned her country its first ever gold in the women's marathon at the World Championships in a slow-burning race that flared into dramatic life over the final seven kilometres as she won a personal duel with Kenya's 2011 and 2013 winner Edna Kiplagat, who in turn secured silver by a stride from the fast-finishing US runner Amy Cragg.

Lavinia Haitope and Beata Naigambo finished 50th and 30th with times of 2:44:02 and 2:37:24 respectively. Naigambo clocked a season's best time. Haitope, who had before said that she would like to improve her best time of 2hours, 40 minutes and 26 seconds, fell short of her target. Tobias Hiskia, their coach, said the athletes trained hard despite not receiving a lot of financial support.

A total of 205 countries are competing in 26 events at this year's championships. The USA is topping the list with eight medals, followed by Kenya with four medals, Ethiopia with three and South Africa with two medals so far.

In August 2015 the games were held in China and 1 931 athletes participated from a record of 207 national federations. Kenya topped the medal table for the first time in its history, winning 16 medals of which seven were gold. The USA has topped the medal table on 10 occasions.

-Additional reporting by IAAF website

LIMBA MUPETAMI