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Gym closures force Kenyan sports champions to train by roadside

FILE: Kenya National Annual Taekwondo Championships at the Mbaraki sports club in Mombasa county, April 19, 2019. [PHOTO BY GIDEON MAUNDU/STANDARD].

Kenya taekwondo champion Vincent Ochieng usually trains in school sports halls in Kisumu, but now he is working out with hundreds of other people on the gritty surface of the western city's biggest highway flyover.

The government closed sports facilities in March as part of measures to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, leaving athletes like Ochieng, who was looking forward to representing Kenya at the World Taekwondo Championships in China in October, with nowhere to train.

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