Kioni named Tokyo Olympics Chef de Mission

From Left- Chairman Kenya Volleyball Federation Waithaka Kioni, President NOCK Paul Tergat, CS Sports Amina Mohamed and Mitsuhiro Kobayashi Charge de affairs Embassy Japan in Kenya during the launch of Olympic Tokyo 2020 in Nairobi on Wednesday, July 24, 2019. [Jonah Onyango, Standard]

With the world’s biggest sporting events less than a year away, National Olympics Committee of Kenya (NOC-K) on Wednesday celebrated the start of a year-long countdown to the opening ceremony for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

Nock also announced the appointment of Noc-K deputy president and Kenya Volleyball Federation (KVF) president Waithaka Kioni as the head Kenya’s delegation to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games scheduled for August next year as the  Chef de Mission.

“This is a position that comes with a lot of responsibility, I will ensure I work with all stakeholders to uphold the principles of governance and integrity. We know what happened in Rio so we have to work closely with the steering committee to ensure that all our activities are ethical,” said Kioni.

The Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed who attended the event vow to supervise all the preparation to ensure what happened at Rio Olympics that landed former Noc-K officials Francis Paul and Stephen Soi in court over graft don’t happen again and the games’ steering committee will constitute after African Games in a month time.

“Drawing from past lessons, I will personally supervise the management of this process to ensure that logistical details are addressed seamlessly to allow athletes only focus on the games” Amina assured.

She added: “The Ministry shall constitute the Steering Committee for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics immediately after the 12th edition of African Games to be held next month in Morocco.”

The forthcoming Games will be Noc-K President Paul Tergat first major task since taking over the office from Kipchoge Kieno in September 2017.  

“I am confident if we join hands we will the strongest brand. Let’s make it happen and make it big in Tokyo” said Tergat, a legendary long-distance runner.

NOC-K also announced that Team Kenya will be settled in Kurume City as their camp during the preparations.

Wilson Kiprugut Chumo who was the first Kenyan and African to win an Olympic medal when he bagged bronze in the 880 yards (now 800 metres) race at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games attended the event alongside Pauline Konga who was the first Kenyan woman to win medal at the 1996 Atlanta Games when she bagged silver medal in 5000m event.

The event was also attended by Japanese embassy representatives, former Noc-k president Keino, Industrialist Manu Chandaria, Athletics Kenya Jackson Tuwei among other stakeholders.

The competition will feature 33 sporting events with more than 11,000 athletes and officials from 206 countries expected to attend.