Mutola for Soya date

By James Waindi

Six-time World Indoor Championships 800m gold medallist, Maria Mutola, will be the guest of honour during the fifth edition of the Soya awards gala on January 23.

Mutola, who also won the 2000 Sydney Olympics 800m gold medal, last visited Kenya in 2006 when she graced the Tusker International Meeting with Namibia’s track legend Frankie Fredericks.

Speaking during a press conference yesterday, Soya awards founder and five-time World Cross Country Champion, Paul Tergat, said the organisers had initially invited former Italy football captain, Robert Baggio, West Ham manager Gianfranco Zola and Maria Mutola, but only Mutola confirmed participation.

"We would like to give our sports heroes and heroines as well as the invited guests and general public a fitting ceremony," said Tergat.

"Mutola is a lady of tremendous repute and her coming is particularly significant for us because all along, we have had only male stars at Soya awards like Haile Gebrselassie, Daniel Amokachi and Hendrick Ramaala," said Tergat.

"As we celebrate five years of Soya, I can only look back with pride. We started with few categories, but we have since increased the number of categories including federation of the year, community hero and this year, coach of the year," he added.

In Beijing, Mutola became the first athlete to contest five successive Olympic track finals. She is the first athlete to win four individual World Cup titles and she holds a record seven world indoor titles.

Meanwhile, Soya plans to include schools in next ceremony to motivate the youngsters.

"We are looking into the possibility of having a schools category, where schools can compete against one another. We will be discussing this with a view to implementing it next year," said Tergat.

"I must say that the schools competition has increased over the years and it is only fair that we pit schools against one another and not clubs," he said.

"I am sure schools like Kakamega would be happy to compete against Upper Hill and Ofafa Jericho instead of being pitted against national teams," Tergat added.

In the meantime, nominations for the Soya awards are expected to end on December 31. Organisers noted that the response has been high and expect the number to surpass the previous years.