Athletics Kenya has abandoned the Sprints and field events

 

As a fan of athletics, I cant help but wonder why nowadays Kenya cant seem to produce decent sprinters.

 

Kenya has had some excellent, world class sprinters in the past In 1993, three Kenya runners made it to the finals of the 400m at the World Championships (Samson Kitur, Simon Kemboi and Kennedy Ochieng), and came within a whisker of winning the 4 * 400m relay taking the silver medal behind the USA. In 1968, The Kenya 4 * 400m quartet won the silver at the Olympics and in 1972, they won the gold. Samson Kitur won bronze medals in the 400m at both the 1992 Olympics and the 1993 World Championships.

Also in 1993, two Kenyans , Eric Keter and Barnabas Kinyor reached the finals of the world championships in the 400m hurdles. 

 
  Samson Kitur was a regular fixture at European golden gala races and earned a reputation for "finishing like a train" over the last 100m

 Looking at the archives, one quickly notices that in the 1980s, Kenya had a galaxy of female sprinters who could match the West Africans step for step:

The likes of Alice Adala, Ruth Waithera, Joyce Odhiambo, Rose Tata Muya among others matched and often beat the much vaunted Nigerians. In their prime, Alice Adala and Ruth Waithera were African champions at the 100m and the 400m respectively. And in the early 80s, Kenya was winning both sprint relays at the African championships. Waithera not only qualified for the Olympics but she made it into the final. Quite an achievement for an athlete with limited training facilities.

And its not easy for any true fan to forget the glorious 1-2 finishing the 400 metres by Francisca Chepkurui and Geraldine Shitandayi at the 4th all Africa games in front of a partisan capacity crowd. Joseph Gikonyo won both the 100m and 200m at the 1990 African championships, leaving a trail of West Africans in his wake.

Even in the field events Kenya could boast top performers like Elizabeth Olaba who won silver medal at the 4th All African games. Robert Welikhe was twice African champion in the shot putt during the late eighties. Jacinta Serete (long jump), Caroline Kola (heptathlon) and Seraphina Nyauma (javelin) were both African champions during the 1980s.

Philip Sang was twice African champion in the 110m hurdles during the early 80s. Daniel Kimaiyo (1979) and Eric Keter (1993) were both African champions in the 400m hurdles. Simon Kipkemboi won the 200m at the 1985 African championships beating Innocent Egbunike, the Nigerian legend to second place. Kipkemboi again won the 200m at the 1987 4th All African games. Kennedy Ondiek reached the finals of the 1990 commonwealth games in the 200m. Peter Wekesa reached the semi finals of the 1988 Olympics in the 100m. Kennedy Ochieng won the 400m at the 1993 African championships.

Yet these achievements occurred two decades ago. The records set by these athletes are still standing. They did it with very poor training facilities and without any assistance. How well would they have performed if they had proper coaching.

Today's athletes have been unable to come close to the times recorded by these athletes of yesteryear. I was appalled to notice that Kenya's top runners were doing the 200 metres in 25 seconds and the 100 metres in 13 seconds. That's not sprinting, its more like crawling.

One gets the impression that Athletics Kenya has deliberately abandoned the sprints and field events because they assume that Kenya is incapable of producing world class sprinters. How short their memories are. There is certainly no lack of talent. If Kenya could produce classy runners in the 1980s then surely it can do so now. If European countries like Ukraine cant produce world beaters then so can we. If Jamaica with its limited resources can create a system that consistently produces world beaters then so can we.   Its simply a question of identifying real talent at an early age and exposing them to proper training. Sprint training is very technical and involves the development of specific muscle groups. A system must be developed to identify budding talent and expose them to the best training.

 
  Sprinters like Hellen Chemtai above have yet to scale the heights achieved by Kenya's sprinters from the 1980s and before.                
      
AK must come up with a program that can scout for young talent, identify their strengths and exposes them to the best coaching techniques and pays attention to minute details such as nutrition , psychological preparation and even patriotism. Such a system is doable as has been explained in a previous article. While attending Strathmore School in the early 90s, the best sprinter at the school also happened to be an excellent leaper. his vertical leap was probably somewhere in the range of 40 inches. Such an athlete would make an excellent and natural hurdler given his leaping ability and his foot speed. But alas that kind of talent will always go to waste in Kenya because to begin with, most school teachers are not trained to identify such talent and most schools do not have equipment such as hurdles.

 Over to you AK.

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