Otucet Opens Up on Athletics’ Less-Than-Expected Performance at Commonwealth Games
Uganda Athletics president Dominic Otucet has opened up on the Uganda Athletics team’s performance, which was below expected standards.
While addressing the media at the Uganda Athletics offices in Kampala on August 11, Otucet highlighted two major causes for the team’s poor performance.
In his revelation, the President explained:
“It is true that Athletics won a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow 2026.
It is a performance below our expectations, but it did not just happen that way. There were a lot of issues, but I will highlight these two.”
“One was natural because the weather was too cold, most especially for our distance runners. And our best performances most of the time have been coming from distance runners.”
“Then the second was the way our team reached Glasgow. It was exhausting. They jetted to Heathrow and from there they took 10 hours on the road, travelling by bus.”
“They reached Glasgow with no time to recover. We have been performing because we understand how to give our athletes priority in everything — what they eat, how they travel to events — but the way our team travelled was very bad.”
Even at the lowest point in years, Uganda Athletics, with the bronze won by Peruth Chemtai in the 3000-meter steeplechase, was still among the three sports disciplines that won the three medals for Team Uganda at Glasgow 2026.
At the recently concluded event, Uganda won a total of three medals. The other two came from 3×3 Basketball, where the Gazelles won a silver medal, while Para-swimmer Husnah Kukundakwe won silver in the Breaststroke SB8.
In Uganda’s history, Athletics leads with 41 medals and is only closely followed by Boxing with an estimated 39 to 41 medals from the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, and World Championships.
Out of the 41, 21 medals have come from the Commonwealth Games. Remarkably, the first-ever Commonwealth medal for Uganda was won in Vancouver 1954 by Patrick Etolu at what were then called the British Empire and Commonwealth Games.