Celebrations in Uganda over Kiprotich’s Moscow Gold

August 18, 2013(KAMPALA) – Ugandan athlete Stephen Kiprotich cemented his place among global elite runners when he won gold at the World Athletics Championships in Moscow on Saturday sending Ugandans into wild celebrations.

‘‘Kiprotich is Uganda’s greatest,’’ screamed the Daily Monitor newspaper.

All the major newspapers splashed his pictures on their front pages with TV viewers and radio listeners suggesting that a modern sports training facility be built and named after the athlete while others said his picture should be put on a new note of the Uganda shillings the central bank intends to introduce.

‘’The prison service will have a meeting this week to discuss what to do for him,’’ said a gleeful Frank Baine, Spokesperson of the Uganda prison service where until last year Kiprotich was a prison warder before he was promoted to a more senior rank of Assistant Superintendant of prisons after winning gold at the London Olympics.

The Ugandan athletes’ who is still an officer of the Ugandan prison services beat competition from Ethiopians Lelisa Desisa and Tadese Tola to emerge victorious in the men’s 42 km race in Moscow, the first time that the competition has been won by a none Kenyan since 2005.

ST