Kenya get 125 slots for Commonwealth: The new quota means a reduction from the previous 195 participants

Kenya's David Rudisha (C) runs to victory ahead of Kenya's Ferguson Cheruiyot Rotich (L) and Scotland's Guy Learmonth (R) in their semi-final of the men's 800m athletics event at Hampden Park during the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland on July 30, 2014. AFP PHOTO

Kenya has been allocated only 125 participants to the next year’s Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia on April 4 to 15 next year.

The new quota means a reduction from 195 participants that took part in 2014 edition in Glasgow, Scotland with athletics taking the lion’s share in the team with 66 athletes. The squad collected ten gold medals, ten silver and five bronze with most of the medals coming from athletics with one bronze coming from boxing and the others in Paralympics.

The organisers decision on trimming numbers at next April’s event follows after an overflow of people in the 2014 event in  Glasgow that left several hundred people stranded.

Under the new arrangement, boxing will have 10 representatives. Swimming, shooting and cycling got four places each.

Table tennis, badminton, squash, triathlon bowling, wrestling, and weightlifting got two slots each. While sevens rugby, a team sport, will have 12 players for both men and women.

The National Olympic Committee of Kenya, through chef de mission Barnaba Korir, last month presented a tentative budget of Sh450 million to the government for the 2018 club games. Kenya will take part in 15 disciplines.

“GOLDOC calculated each country’s performance in the last edition before coming up with the quota,” Korir disclosed. “Like in athletics, Kenya will field squads in both track and field events, and no qualification standard time is required, but a top three finish in middle and long distance at the national trials.

“The sprints will have two representations for both men and women, and field events will only have one participant per event for both men and women.” 

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