• Siame

By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA –

ZAMBIA’S star runner, Sydney Siame clocked 10.29 seconds to win gold in the 100 metres sprint final honours at the 2015 Spakassen World Gala in Regensburg, Germany.
It was a Zambian affair as Titus Kafunda struck bronze in the same race to crown a successful outing by the two sprint luminaries, who are being supervised by the German expert attached to Zambia, Ralph Mouchbahani.
Siame finished ahead of Great Britain’s Kieren Daly to win the gold medal, one of the several in his young career, as the latter timed 10.32 seconds.
Kafunda was third after finishing on 10.40 seconds for his bronze medal and just one hundredth of a second better that Great Britain’s Henry Tobais and Germany’s Martin Keller, who both missed out on a medal.
To get to the finals, Siame finished second in Heat-Four with a better time of 10.26 seconds, a time that has now gone go down as his Personal Best. This is after the International Athletics Association Federation (IAAF) questioned the time he posted in Dakar two weeks ago because of the excessive wind speed.
In Dakar at the World Challenge one-day meet, Siame timed 10.18 seconds but the tailwind speed was a 2.1m/s, marginally higher than the acceptable 2.0m/s and meant his time was wind assisted.
Kafunda was in Heat-Five where he finished third after timing 10.45 seconds which was enough to get him to the finals where he won bronze for Zambia.
But despite the gold and bronze for the only two Zambian at the games, Mouchbahani must be feeling low that his two shining stars failed to meet the golden time of 10.16 seconds, the time the International Olympics Committee (IOC) has set for runners to qualify for the Rio 2016 Olympics Games.
In the 200 metres race, the two Zambian did not make the medal podium with Kafunda timing 21.09 seconds, failing short of his personal best time of 21.00 seconds, while Siame time of 21.17 was his personal best, eclipsing his previous time of 21.27 seconds.