Let me start by saying that East Africa Breweries deserve kudos for supporting the sport of athletics as well as other sports such as rugby.

However, the 2007 Tusker meet left a lot to be desired in terms of organization. Holding an athletics meet without electronic timing equipment, wind gauges and other equipment required to ratify records is a cardinal sin in athletics. It renders any records set at the meet useless. The European athletics meets offer bonuses for any records set and with good reason. Any records set during the meet generates plenty of positive publicity for the event and its sponsors.

Tom Musinde probably broke the Kenya 100m record at the Tusker event. But due to the absence of timing equipment, we will never know. Such a feat  if put in the hands of good marketers, it could generate great publicity for the event and its sponsors. It has been a long time since Kenya produced a sprinter of this calibre and this was a wasted opportunity.

The Tusker event organizers should strongly consider having the event at the beginning of the athletics season rather than at the end so that fewer athletes pull out due to injury or fatigue. They should consider making the event primarily a sprint, field events and hurdles event. Kenyans are already flooded with a myriad of marathons, road races and other long distance events. But sprint fans are starved and soreley miss the glory days of Kenya sprinting.

To give the event global publicity, they should try o invite runners from nations that have a fanatical following for the sport and have only one or two hopefuls in the sprint events. Such nations include Sweden, Greece and Belgium.

Tusker will also gain plenty of mileage if they help develop sprinters in the nation. They can do this by providing the funding needed to hire a qualified foreign coach who can then be charged with scouting and training promising athletes from all over the country. Also funding to avail gyms and other facilities needed to create world class sprinters.  This will eventually raise the standards of the event and possibly take Kenyans back to the glory days when superb sprinters like Ondieki and Gikonyo in the 100 and Gitonga, Ochieng and Kitur in the 400m battled each other and thrilled fans at Nyayo stadium.

Talented sprinters like Karen Nyakagawa need corporate support else they will continue to fall short of their true potential

 Tusker should consider making the event a a family event where parents feel comfortable bringing their families. I am not sure a floodlit event lends itself well to a family outing.

Some of the blunders committed by EABL are reminiscent of the ones they made with the much maligned Tusker cup. Rather than invite local teams that actually have a following or even the national team, they  continue to pit Tusker FC against foreign teams thus generating resentment. Again Tusker would gain far more mileage for their product if they helped develop the game locally.

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