Recent intrigues in the sporting sector has painted a glim picture on preparedness, motivation and participation of Kenyan teams in regional, continental and international sporting events.
The push and pull between federations and the government on funding of Kenyan athletes and teams representing Kenya in international events is a cause of worry, especially so with the Tokyo Olympics 2020 around the corner.
The Olympic Games are a huge sporting event that is cost intensive. How then is the country preparing for the Olympics?
The body responsible for facilitating Team Kenya participation in the Tokyo 2020 games is the National Olympic Committee of Kenya. NOCK has had to shake off the ghosts of Rio 2016 to prepare the nation adequately for Tokyo 2020. NOCK not only has the responsibility of preparing Kenyan athletes for Tokyo 2020, but also to promote diversity in the number of disciplines Kenya participates and wins medals in.
With 33 sports and 339 events in total, Tokyo 2020 will see more medals— the most ever gold medals in the Olympic Games history!
NOCK has developed an action plan that started off last year and whose continued execution is key to Kenya’s preparedness towards Tokyo 2020.
Early this year, NOCK provided each federation in the Olympic Games Sh500,000 each towards preparations for Tokyo 2020. While this amount may seem meagre, it is worth noting that NOCK spent a total of Sh12 million on all the federations.
Furthermore, NOCK continues to provide other forms of support to federations in an attempt to enhance their qualification chances. NOCK, in conjunction with the IOC, has also provided Olympic Scholarships to seven athletes in different sporting disciplines to support their qualification process for Tokyo 2020.
More recently, NOCK has established a management team for the Tokyo 2020 lead by Waithaka Kioni as the CDM and Barnabas Korir as the team manager. Supported by other individuals in NOCK and its affiliates, this team is well equipped and competent to prepare Kenya for the Olympics.
Indeed, the issue of kitting of athletes has been a thorny issue for NOCK in past games, the CDM accompanied by some of the NOCK executive members, travelled to NikeE headquarters to sort out issues on Kitting and develop modalities on how to adequately kit the Kenyan delegation to Tokyo. NOCK has also been in constant touch with the media to integrate them in the preparations of Tokyo 2020.
