Restore fading athletics glory

Athletics Kenya (AK) will today select a team in readiness for 2023 World Athletics Championships upon the completion of two-day trials that have been punctuated with surprises at the Nyayo National Stadium.

We hope the selection team led by the AK’s Director of competitions Paul Mutwii and head coach Julius Kirwa will be guided by meritocracy and performance on the track. The team that will represent Kenya at the 2023 World Athletics Championships scheduled for August 19-27 should help restore the country’s fast-fading athletics glory.

The selected athletes should enter residential training immediately, and their engagements restricted to avoid burnout so as to better prepare them for the task ahead.

The 2022 World Athletics Championships in Oregon, USA, where Kenya won 10 medals; two gold, five silver and three bronze were the worst since the 2003 Paris championships, where the country collected one gold, four silver and a bronze.

That performance depicts a team that retreated to a comfort zone, only to stir up from the slumber when Kenya lost both the Olympic and world steeplechase titles at the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games and in Oregon after decades of domination.

All has not been well in the men’s 5,000m where Kenya last won the world title in 2005 (Helsinki) and in 10,000m where Kenya’s last title came in 2001 Edmonton.

Kenyan women are yet to win the 10,000m title since Vivian Cheruiyot’s exploits in 2015. Kenya also lost the women’s 5,000m crown to Ethiopia last year.

While we commend AK for bringing coaches and athletes together for sessions to retrace where the rains started beating us, instant results aren’t expected.

We hope the stringent anti-doping regulations put in place by the government, Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), Anti-doping Agency of Kenya and AK will help tame the menace.

The government has committed Sh619 million annually to the fight against doping and it is hoped that the involvement of AIU in the trials will bear fruit in the fight against doping.