Javelin: Yego focusing on Olympics despite virus threat

FILE: Julius Yego in a past training session.

Aged 32, Africa javelin champion Julius Yego knows he has limited time and capacity to win gold at the Olympic Games.

In another five years, when the next cycle of the Games will take place, Yego is certain he will be too old to make an impact.

Yet he is not certain if the Tokyo Olympic Games will go on as planned from July 24 to August 9 in Japan.

Yego will now be forced to train even harder after the International Olympic Committee postponed the Olympics yesterday to next year.

However, Yego is not leaving anything to chance; he badly needs to upgrade his silver medal he won in the Rio Games back in 2016 to gold.

"I have one mission this season, to win gold. I want it more than before, to add to my career collections," Yego said on Monday in Nairobi.

"The gold is something that I have dreamt of for a long time. Since my breakthrough in Beijing World championships back in 2015, I have dreamt of feeling the texture of the gold medal dangling down my neck."

Yego still holds onto the outside chance of raising the bar higher in Tokyo next year.

"For sure, it's going to be my last Olympics," Yego added. "I don't want to imagine that there may be a potential postponement or a total cancellation of the Tokyo Games.

The 2024 Olympics are still far away, and age is catching up with me. I can't possibly still be competitive in another four years."

But even at home, Yego has not been spared the wrath of the coronavirus. Kenyan authorities have cancelled all foreign travel and closed all training camps.

Yego threw 87.73m to secure qualification to the Games.

Meanwhile, sprint star Dina Asher-Smith switched her focus to "Tokyo 2021" yesterday after the Olympic Games were postponed as British rowing chiefs also welcomed the decision to delay the event.

Asher-Smith, Britain's world 200m champion, had previously tweeted that she was frustrated by IOC's four-week window in making a decision before they did yesterday."  [Xinhua, AFP]