APA-Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) Ethiopian sport families and fans expressed, on Monday in Addis-Ababa, their disappointment with the performance of the national athletics team which finished 9th at the 17th African athletics championship that ended on Sunday in Kenya. .

The sport family is asking the Ethiopian Athletics Federation to immediately investigate why Ethiopia performed below its potential.

“It is really disappointing to see such a result. We won only one gold medal, which is nothing compared to our athletics history,” said Metaferia Zeleke, a sport fan in Addis Ababa.

Ethiopian media are hosting call-in shows on the athletes’ poor performance at the Kenyan championship.

Kenyan athletes were able to collects more medals, which the Ethiopian were expected to won, especially in the 5,000 men and women races.

Ethiopia’s sole gold medal was won by Double Olympic champion Tirunesh Dibaba in the 10,000m race finishing in 31 minutes, 51.39 seconds.

Ethiopia won a total of nine medals with 1 gold, 4 silver and 4 bronze.

“We don’t understand why our athletes failed to bring more medals like in previous editions. Our federation should let the public know why our athletes are not doing well in the championship,” said another sport fan, Solomon Teklemariam.

The host Kenya tops the medal table with 25 medals including 10 gold medals.

More than 700 athletes from 53 African countries took part in the championship.

Nigeria finished second with 18 medals and South Africa was third with 9 medals.