I’m ready for the world — Kassim

 Newly-crowned Accra Milo Marathon champion, Kassim Mohammed, has hinted about plans to move out of his comfort zone to seek bigger challenges on the international scene in the coming months. 

After winning the country’s most revered marathon for the second consecutive time last Monday, the 31-year-old disclosed to the Graphic Sports that he was preparing to participate in a competition in Italy.

“I am looking for more sponsors who would push me onto the world stage and I believe when they come I would take the world by storm,” said Kassim, a corporal with the Ghana Armed Forces.

Kassim beat over 4,000 other athletes to win the 42.2km race in a time of 2 hours, 20.30 minutes. He patted himself for improving his time over that of the previous year [2013] by seven minutes and insisted he could have done better if he had made his pace instead of allowing the others to catch up with him.

“My target was to improve [my time] by 20 minutes but because I slowed down to test the other contestants, I could not make that time,” stated Kassim who admitted he was still satisfied with the time he made because it puts him in a good stead to participate in another competition in Tanzania.

He said he was not surprised he won this year’s competition because he spent three month in Tanzania in a higher altitude just to train and, therefore, knew he had an advantage over most of the contestants none of which had that kind of exposure.

Teenage sensation Lariba Sakat, who won the female competition ahead of pre-race favourites, Millicent Boadi and Elizabeth Bortsor, said she did not anticipate to win and was proud to have beaten the two previous champions.

The 18-year-old student said she hoped to get an opportunity to race in an international competition.

Lariba, who won the under-15 race two years ago, decried the absence of competitions on the local scene to keep athletes active ready to for major competitions all the time.