It proved 13th time unlucky as world record holder Eliud Kipchoge fluffed his lines at Sunday’s London marathon, won in a thrilling sprint finish by Ethiopian Shura Kitata.
The coronavirus-hit marathon, limited to elite runners and with no crowds, was the first Kipchoge hasn’t won since finishing second in Berlin in 2013 – he had won all 11 others he raced in, including the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Dropped at the 38km mark of the 42.2km race, Kipchoge could only watch from a distance as Kitata outpaced Kenyan Vincent Kipchumba in the final straight to win in 2hr 05min 41sec. Ethiopian Sisay Lemma took third.
Rather than the usual mazy run through the streets of the British capital, the course was made up of 19 1.5-mile loops around St James Park, with the iconic Buckingham Palace framing the finish line.
The men’s race had been touted as a showdown between Kenyan legend Kipchoge and Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele, arguably the best track athlete in the world.
But Bekele pulled out Friday with a calf injury, taking the gloss off what would have been a battle for the ages.
Instead, Kipchoge seemed to have missed the hot pace he is used to, meaning a lead pack of eight runners unusually remained in the running late into the race, held in cold, rainy conditions.
Having to negotiate the curves of the looped course, the pace fell well below the personal bests of the leading peloton. Fireworks were promised at the end, and so it proved.
The podium finishers came into the final kilometre three abreast. Lemma was dropped as Kipchumba surged, but Kitata somehow found a last drop of energy to reel the Kenyan in and keep his nose in front to win by a second in a dramatic finish.
“Kenenisa Bekele was helping me for this race and he advised me how to run. I trained for the same course, I am very happy to win the race,” Shura, who finished second in the 2018 London and New York Marathons, told BBC.
(BBC)
Ethiopian Shura stunned London as well Kipchoge
SuperSport acquires exclusive rights to broadcast Ethiopian Premier League matches
MultiChoice Group (MCG) announced that its subsidiary SuperSport has acquired exclusive rights to broadcast Ethiopian Premier League matches
In a statement MultiChoice sent to Capital said “this is an exciting opportunity to support Ethiopian football and its fans, and to affirm Multichoice Group’s commitment to investing in Ethiopia and across the African continent.”
SuperSport adds Ethiopia to its portfolio of soccer properties, which includes the Zambian Premier League and the Premier Soccer League (PSL) in South Africa, reaffirming MCG’s commitment to investment in sport across Africa. The Ethiopian Premier League is the top association football division in Ethiopia, and comprises 16 clubs. Broadcasts of the Ethiopian Premier League will be carried across the entire territory of sub-Saharan Africa and the adjacent islands, where the appetite for soccer is substantial.
MultiChoice Group CEO Calvo Mawela emphasized the significance of the sport for the Group and what the deal means for Ethiopian football: “Through SuperSport, we are the leading broadcaster of sport in Africa, with our programming being viewed by millions of fans continent-wide. Sport is an integral part of our content offering and supporting the development of sport content makes sense for our business. This partnership will give the Ethiopian Premier League greater visibility, attracting fans from across the continent.”
Commenting on the agreement Ethiopian Premier League chairman, Lt. Fekade Mamo said “we recognise the importance of having the right partners on board to contribute in growing our league and to cultivate local talent. This is a significant step forward for the league, and will create a brighter future for players, the industry, and bring Ethiopian football closer to the world.”
Director of Multichoice Ethiopia, Omar Bagersh added, “this is an important milestone for Ethiopian football and will substantially impact the football landscape in the country and create multiple economic spin -offs around football in one of the largest countries on the African continent” MultiChoice Ethiopia CEO, Gelila G.Michael said, “This is an exciting addition on DStv, particularly for our customers in Ethiopia. We are eager to mobilize for this exciting task ahead and are underway to making every effort so that sports fans have easy access to our products and a seamless experience across the country.” SuperSport will produce the broadcasts, alongside the empowerment of local production staff. SuperSport’s holistic approach to developing local leagues has seen those leagues grow from strength to strength and the Ethiopian Premier League will no doubt benefit from having a partner of the stature and expertise of SuperSport as it looks to the future. This announcement is the latest in a series of exciting developments which mark MCG’s investment in Ethiopia. Through DStv Ethiopia and the investment in local content such as the Ethiopian Premier League, Amharic language channels such as Zee Alem, Nick Jnr Amharic and local free-to-air channels, MultiChoice is developing a strong value proposition to deliver world -class, locally relevant content to audiences across Ethiopia. “This is an important agreement for MCG, one which affirms our commitment to investing in Ethiopia and across Africa. We will continue to demonstrate our commitment to Ethiopia through the development of local skills and industries, and through exciting plans for content that speak to Ethiopians in their own voice. By continuing to invest in local markets across Africa we intend to create lasting value for local industries; and opportunities for local content creators; distribution of content in local languages and promotion of local talent,” added Mawela.
Airtel selects Ericsson to modernize its 4G network in Kenya
Airtel Africa is expanding its strategic partnership with Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) to enable 4G coverage in Kenya. With Ericsson’s Radio Access Network (RAN) and packet core products for 4G, Airtel subscribers will experience enhanced quality of voice and data.
The network modernization deal, signed in August 2020, is in line with the Kenyan Digital Economy Blueprint Vision 2030 which aims to provide robust connectivity in rural areas and facilitate e-commerce platforms. The modernization deal will drive the simplification and upgrade of the existing network and future-proof it for the anticipated rapid mobile expansion in the country.
With Ericsson Radio System and Packet Core solutions, Airtel Kenya’s network will have 4G coverage, while driving enhanced use cases in both the consumer and the enterprise 
segments. Ericsson technology shall make the network in Kenya ready for 5G deployment.
Prasanta Das Sarma, CEO at Airtel Kenya says: “Robust and secure communications are an essential component of a digital society in Kenya. We are firmly anchored to the strategy of delivering reliable connections across the country and are looking forward to expanding the high-quality mobile broadband services to our subscribers.”
Fadi Pharaon, President of Ericsson Middle East and Africa, says: “Together with Airtel, we will implement this project that aims to establish an advanced LTE network in Kenya, providing Airtel’s customers an enriched experience – both in the consumer and business segments. Through this partnership, we reaffirm our ambition to set #AfricaInMotion by partnering with Airtel to grow and support an increasingly digitalized society in Kenya.”
Furthermore, Ericsson will deploy its Kathrein Mobile Communication Antenna portfolio which will help provide additional enhancement to the network’s robustness whilst Ericsson’s technologically advanced network management system, Ericsson Network Manager will be utilized to support Airtel in managing the network seamlessly by integrating various network elements on single platform.
#AfricaInMotion: Accelerating inclusion through mobile solutions
By: Fida Kibbi, Vice President & Head of Marketing and Communications
Ericsson Middle East & Africa
Digital revolution has enabled various forms of innovation. We all agree that Africa is witnessing a major technology shift and the pace of change in Africa is becoming exponential. At Ericsson, we have launched #AfricaInMotion to accelerate technology roll-out in Africa together with our partners and re-iterate our commitment to the continent.
According to Ericsson’s Mobility Report, more than 340 million people are connected to mobile broadband across Sub-Saharan Africa and, in just five years, this number will almost double. By 2025, mobile data traffic in Africa will rise by more than 50% year-on-year – by far the highest growth rate worldwide.
So, Africa isn’t just catching up. There is a real buzz here and technology adoption is improving!
However, it’s not about what we have, it’s about what we will do with it! It’s about the extent to which connectivity can accelerate finding solutions to our challenges in Africa whether economic or social.
The power of connectivity is addressing one of those major challenges and, in my view, an essential one to solve all other challenges; Education!
We all know that education brings growth and progress into society. The more the people in a society are educated, the more they can provide beneficial contribution to their environment.
Another fact that adds value to the importance of education, is that it has an essential role in improving individuals’ lives and the communities. Education fosters inclusion and ultimately enables sustainable development goals and human development, creates opportunities for the people of Africa and sustainable development.
Quoting the late Nelson Mandela ‘Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.’
If Africa is to compete in the digital age, a focus on people and the young ones is the starting point, and in parallel we need to leverage the power of connectivity to enable education and from there reap the benefits to the society and the economy.
So how can we enable digital inclusion to support the future of education?
Key enablers to support digital inclusion and greater adoption of mobile services to support future education are having the infrastructure in place, smartphone affordability, consumer educational readiness and content.
This pandemic has created the largest disruption to the education systems in history! Nevertheless, this crisis has stimulated innovation and was a great example of the power of connectivity sustaining education and also the power of collaboration. When all partners came together to enable connectivity and develop solutions for schools, education was sustained.
This inspired us at Ericsson to partner recently and join forces with UNICEF to help close the digital gap by mapping unconnected schools worldwide in 35 countries by the end of 2023, many of which are in Africa. This is a critical first step towards providing every child with access to digital learning opportunities. This joint effort is part of the Giga initiative that aims to connect every school to the internet.
In addition to funding, we are committed to provide resources for data engineering and data science capacity to accelerate school connectivity mapping. Together with our partners in the industry, we will assist with the collection, validation and analysis of real-time school connectivity data. This is part of our Connect to Learn program, a global education initiative which has reached over 180,000 students located across 25 countries to date.
Today, technology is presenting us with an opportunity and it’s on us all to collaborate, change mindsets, drive policy changes and create the necessary environment for knowledge sharing and execution and be part of building a brighter future for Africa.
But how can we contribute moving forward?
If we will have a true impact on inclusion, we must work together on behalf of the excluded population to scale connectivity, enable technology adoption and leverage it towards enabling education. We will need to focus on public-private partnerships and collaborate to create the necessary environment for knowledge sharing and execution. To accelerate digital inclusion, we all have a role to play.
Just because a person is connected doesn’t mean our job is done. It’s about what connectivity will bring to him or her and what it will solve.
Together, we are fighting diseases and technology proved us that it has the power of saving lives and our world. Today, we have an opportunity to set #AfricaInMotion and accelerate Africa’s growth with digital inclusion. We can create historical change with technology as a key enabler; a society where more people have the opportunity to enjoy what we take for granted.
#AfricaInMotion
