The second batch of Kenya’s Olympians leaves for Rio de Janeiro today to take part in the first Olympic Games to be hosted by Brazil from Friday. The various teams entered for the Olympics have had a pretty smooth training programme in residential camp, therefore competitors in various sporting disciplines should be quite focused in their endeavour to bring home medals. Special focus will be on athletics where Kenya has proved that it will be the nation to beat after finishing top in last year’s world athletics championships in Beijing.

The only blight to the team’s participation has been the doping allegations swirling around the athletics team and Kenya’s near ban from the Games for delaying to enact legislation that will provide direction about how doping cases are prosecuted. For a while, it had seemed that Kenya would be locked out of the Olympics after it was noted that although the country had enacted legislation which outlawed doping, some technical provisions of the Anti-Doping Act 2016 were inconsistent with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) code. Because of these inconsistencies, WADA declared Kenya non-compliant and recommended that the country be withdrawn from the Olympics. Fortunately, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and International Olympic Committee (IOC) intervened and opted to grant Kenya a reprieve until end of the year.

It would appear that Athletics Kenya did not learn from this close shave from its abortive attempt to reinstate its chief executive Isaac Mwangi, who had been accused by two athletes, who failed drugs tests, of seeking bribes to reduce their doping suspensions. Acting on Mwangi’s clearance by the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (ADAK), Athletics Kenya announced it was reinstating its chief executive, but the decision was rescinded when IAAF objected. Had AK stuck to its guns, Kenya’s athletes may have found themselves facing new sanctions in regard to the Olympics.

This is now water under the bridge, and the focus must remain trained on the competition at the Rio games.
As the games begin, Kenya’s contingent will seek to bring glory in the sporting disciplines of athletics, boxing rugby, swimming, wrestling, judo and archery. The entry of competitors in a growing array of sporting disciplines is commendable.

However, we must work harder to raise the level of competitiveness in these disciplines so that Kenya’s competitors in these events have a chance of winning medals. The last gold medal by a Kenyan won outside athletics was in 1988 when Robert Wangila bagged the gold medal at the Seoul Olympic Games. Let’s sharpen the skill of these competitors so that they are more competitive at the Olympic Games. We take this opportunity to wish Team Kenya success at the Rio Olympics.