Align school sports calendar with international contests

Teams get ready for the 2020 Mombasa Open Tong-Il Moo-Do International Martial Arts Championship at the Aga Khan School on Sunday, December 20, 2020. [Omondi Onyango, Standard]

Kenya is no doubt the world’s athletics superpower – from legendary Kichoge Keino to world marathon record holder Eliud Kipchoge the list of our champions is endless.

We have won the highest number of medals on the global stage. We also have a talent glut in rugby, volleyball, basketball, football, thanks to our system of education.

Notably, students from St Patrick’s High School Iten were part of the national team to Olympic Games from 1972 to 2012.

For example, twins Kipkoech Cheruiyot (1,500m) and Charles Cheruiyot (5,000m), then Third Formers at the school, competed in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, USA.

In addition, St Patrick’s won the national volleyball title for 17 years running. Sing’ore Girls and Kapkenda Girls also produced world beating athletes while Cardinal Otunga Mosocho dominated in basketball; Kisumu Girls were known for hockey and Kakamega Boys were kings of football. All these successes were made possible by the education curriculum then.

Without doubt, schools, have contributed greatly to the pool of Kenya's athletics giants. But they are running out of luck.

The performance of these schools dropped greatly due to the changing of the schools' sporting calendar. Previously, sports programmes for schools were aligned with international competitions.

The cross-country season reaches its climax in March at either the African Cross-Country Championships or the World Athletics Cross Country Championships. The track events enter the international stage in June and July.

However, schoo athletics competitions take place in February and March, way ahead of the junior international events like World Under-20 Athletics Championships, which will be hosted by Kenya in July.

Such a calendar affects training of students selected to represent the country.

It would be better for school events to coincide with the international calendar since national teams to Africa Under-18 and World Under-20 contests comprise pupils and secondary school students.

In the past, the school events ran at the same time with international competitions. The current school calendar has laid talent to wasted and led to the fall of sporting giants such as St Patrick’s.

Besides aligning school events with the international ones, the government should fund sports programmes sufficiently.

Today, the bulk of the budget goes to academics which is also important. As a result, students do not have enough training fields and equipment.