After four cycles of Summer Olympics, where success was harder to come by for Kenya, the 2008 Olympics in Beijing saw the an outpouring of success on the track courtesy of a group of runners who had come up together through a series of Junior championships
The most recognizable faceS of this generation would be David Rudisha, and Eliud Kipchoge. Off the track and road new ground was also being broken in field such as swimming and Rugby.
The 1990s and early 2000s Olympics were a fallow Period for Team Kenya. For most of this period Kenya were without any team sports at the Summer games, and the boxers who did make it to the Olympics were a pale shadow of the the ones who contended with the best amateurs in the world in the 1970s…
After missing two Olympics and struggling in one, Kenya’s Olympic team at the 1988 delegation put together a performance for the ages.
The 1970s were a very political time in the world of sports, and even the otherwise sacrosanct Olympic games were not immune to the posturing and power games of the Cold War.
Coming into this decade, Kenya would have expected to go from strength to strength after a promising showing at the 1968 and 1976 Summer Olympics. It was not that be as the intrigues of resisting apartheid and imperialism meant that Kenya skipped the 1976 and 1980 Olympics, denying a slew of potential legends an opportunity to shine on the biggest stage in sports.
Kenya announced herself properly on the big stage of the Summer Olympics in Mexico in 1968, and followed it up with another excellent show at the 1972 games in Munich.
These Olympics went a long way in creating Kenya’s world renown I. Middle and Long distance track events…
Kenya first participated at the Summer olympics as a colony of the British Empire, in the 1956 and 1960 Olympics fielding squads that mostly comprised of British settlers, with the exception of the men’s hockey team, which was mostly Kenyans of Indian descent. This was reflective of the segeragation of access to sorting activities that was characteristics of colonial rule throughout what is now known as the third world.
Kenya being granted independence saw the remocval of such restrictions the gradual transformation of Kenya’s olympic teams from a handfu of amateurs, witha few token natives, to a the middle and long distance running powerhouse people know tpday, starting with the bronze medal of one Wislon Kiprugut at the 1964 Olypics
The republic of Kenya has a relatively gilded history, at the Summer Olympics. As the Tokyo ‘2020’ games approach, here is the first of what I hope will wind up being a a short series of videos exploring Kenya’s participation in the Olympics.
Diamond League is back
World Athletics has published a calendar for the 2021 Wanda Diamond league series of events, signalling another positive step on the path to normalcy in global athletics. With last year’s cycle curtailed by the global Covid-19 pandemic, it should be relief for track fans, and athletes all over the world, that these elite events are back on.
The first event will be at Gateshead, in the UK on the 23rd of May, followed rapidly by events n Doha Qatar, on the 28th of May and then Italy, on the 10th of June, either in the city of Rome or Florence. The inaugural event for the season was initially supposed to happen in Rabat, Morocco, but that host city pulled out due to Covid-19 concerns. The calendar publsihed so far has 14 scheduled Diamond League meets, scheduled to run from the end of this mobth up to 9th September in Zurich Switzerland. 8 of these meets will take place before the re-scheduled 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan, while the remaining 6 will take place in the months of August and September. This calendar was releaased with teh proviso that it could be altered depending on the global health situation.
According to the official website, there are 24 athletic dicsiplines in this season’s Diamond League grand prix. Each of these disciplines will be staged 6 times across the 14 Diamond league events, before a finals where the top eight points getters (100m, 100m hurdles, 110m hurdles, 800m, most technical events) and the top 12 points getters, (1500m, long distance, high jump and pole vault) of these disciplines will contest the title of ‘Diamond League Champion. These champions will receive 50,000 USD prize money, a Diamond league trophy, and conditional wild card entries to the World Athletics Championships
According to reports in the Standard Newspaper,Kenya’s Hellen Obiri and 5000m women’s world record holder Letesembet Gidey, will be among the headliners at the 28th May meet in Doha. They will square off in the women’s 3000 metres
The Kenya Rugby Union has formally appointed Innocent ‘Namcos’ Simiyu as head coach of the Kenya Sevens Men’s team. He begins work officially on the 1st October.
I am happy to return to the team and obviously I know there is a lot of work to be done. Hopefully, we can work together to see how we can take the team to the next level.
I know the task is very big and the challenges are there, but for me, I’m very grateful for this opportunity. – Innocent Simiyu
The appointment was not without controversy, with the Daily Nation reporting that Simiyu’s appointment was only confirmed at the last minute by the board, after lobbying by supporters of Simiyu, and KCB Sevens coach Dennis Mwanja.
Innocent Simiyu, is a name many Kenya Sevens fans will be familiar with. He earned more than 300 caps as a player, during a time when the Kenya Men’s team was establishing itself as a force on the World stage.
He returns to a post which he was relieved from in 2018 in the midst of a row between playing staff and corporate sponsors that became known as the ‘Paris Fiasco’.
He will now be at the helm, as Kenya steps up preparations for what will be a truncated IRB Sevens Circuit, and if that goes well, possibly the Olympics in Tokyo in 2021.
Over the course of the current series of posts, I will be looking at the situation of various Kenyan Sports, as the nation attempts to move forward in the wake of the global covid-19 pandemic. I have looked at the situations in football, cricket and rugby, and in this post will look at Athletics (track and field).
With the long history of medals at Olympics, Athletics Championships, and Commonwealth games, track and field is the sport which Kenya is most widely associated with. Indeed long distance running is something that most of the world almost takes for granted that Kenya will thrive.
The Big picture
Whereas no major sporting event have been able to resume since the arrival of Covid-19 in Kenya, and recently the chair of Kenya’s parliamentary committee for sports decried lack of preparation to resume sporting activities locally, track and field activities appear to be much closer to resumption than some other sports. Indeed it is only recently that a group of Kenyan Athletes received clearance to participate in the revived and revised Diamond League circuit. Yet one thing continues to loom over the sport from before the Covid-19 pandemic. And this is doping. Recent changes to the rules mean that Kenya has been put in a place of extra scrutiny by the Athletics Integrity Unit and the World Anti-Doping Authority. This will put an additional demand of the test capabilities of the Anti-Doping Authority of Kenya has, when competition does finally resume in full.
The Domestic situation
The Covid-19 restrictions have already claimed many casualties on the local track events calendar. For Instance, the World Under 20 Athletics Championships, which were originally scheduled for July this year, will now take place from 17th-22nd August 2021. This is a week after the conclusion of the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics. Nonetheless, all is not lost with positive indications that the inaugural World Intercontinental Tour Nairobi leg might still go ahead in Mid September this year.
However, even with the positive vides coming from the government, at the time of writing of this post, there were no official track or road race events listed on the Athletics Kenya official website, and to be honest, a visit to my local athletics stadium (in Nyahururu) did track meet there any time soon (See picture below). 
International track and field
The first batch of Kenyan athletes allowed to participate in international competition will be in action tonight in the Wanda Diamond League even in Monaco. This event will be the first of four competitive Diamond league events that have been confirmed by the IAAF. A fifth is still awaiting final venue confirmation (at the time of the writing of this post), while there are also a number of exhibition
Despite the withdrawal of Conselsus Kipruto (due to Covid-19), and Kenya’s exclusion from a list of nationals allowed to travel to Europe, Kenya has been able to send a strong contingent. Among those who are expected at the starting gun tonight are Ferguson Rotich, Beatrice Chepkoech, Winnie Chebet (all 800m), Timothy Cheruiyot (1500m) and Leonard Kipkemoi, Bett (3000m steeplechease).
On a broader scale, the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics, by a year could represent a significant setback for older athletes, who were looking for one last hurrah at the Olympics, or an blessing for those who were not in the best of form this year.
Off the track
As alluded to earlier in the post, there is still the looming elephant in the room of doping haunting Track and Field in Kenya.
The Athletics integrity Unit listed Kenya in the category of nations that should receive the highest level of scrutiny, as far as testing for performance enhancing drug abuse is concerned. Most recently, the high profile suspension of World class middle distance runner Elijah Manangoi, for whereabouts violations, and several othere for using banned substances casts a negative light on the efficacy of the anti-doping campaign meant to help restore Kenya’s reputation in global track and field events.
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