NOC-K appoints strength and conditioning coach ahead of 2020 Olympics

 Geoffrey Kimani [DENNIS OKEYO/STANDARD]

The National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOC-K) has formalised the appointment of Geoffrey Kimani as their lead consultant strength and conditioning coach for all its teams.

Kimani begins his duties immediately with Team Kenya for Tokyo 2020 and will also lay the foundation for preparation of Team Kenya for the 2021 Commonwealth Youth Games and the 2022 Youth Olympics in Dakar, Senegal.

Underlining the importance of investing in science to improve Kenya’s performance in international competition, Kimani challenged NOC-K to invest in sports science as an integral part of athlete training.

“If Kenya is to keep competing with the world, all sports need to deliberately incorporate strength and conditioning in their training processes and tie them to program designs and competition cycles,” he said.

This new development comes in the background of establishment of Elite Development Committee by NOC-K, comprising of top coaches in the country, who have been working on a volunteer basis.

Over the years, NOC-K has been challenged to develop a sport science facility and to ensure at least each federation under its wing has a strength and conditioning coach to boost athletes' performance.

Challenged on the sustainability of the program, NOC-K said it plans to recruit university students pursuing Sport Science course to help the coaches as they endeavour to develop a curriculum.

“This is the first step towards the overall plan of setting up a sports science facility that will serve all sports in Kenya, the aim is for the team of the future to understand what constitutes elite athlete training and start early incorporating this in their training,” said NOC-K acting secretary-general Francis Mutuku.

Kimani, a career sprints coach is experienced having worked with local football teams, athletics squads and Kenya Rugby Shujaa team.

His biggest challenge heading to Tokyo Olympic is to help reduce the number of injuries athletes suffer before, during and after the event that has affected Kenya’s overall performance in the global scene.

“Strength and conditioning is vital since it stops injuries before they get to happen among other benefits and it’s not something new since most high-performance centres in developed nations have these programmes,” said Kimani.

Having penned down a 10-month contract with NOC-K he is expected to start preparing the teams that have qualified for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic games.