Flopped plans leave Malkia Strikers coach Bitok a worried man

Kenya Volley ball team coach Paul Bitok during their luncheon hosted by Sports ministry at Intercontinental Hotel, Nairobi on Thursday 03/10/19 [Boniface Okendo,Standard]

His mission was to be elected Kenya Volleyball Federation president in next year’s elections, but that seems to have been thwarted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Instead, coach Paul Bitok will be leading the national women volleyball team to the rescheduled Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan.

He had a manifesto drawn for the 2021 Kenya Volleyball Federation elections, but now he has to formulate a training programme for Malkia Strikers to the Summer Games next year.

Chances are, the elections may also be postponed given the prevailing circumstances.

Bitok is now faced with choosing between patriotism and ambition. Patriotism by standing with the Malkia Strikers, who he guided to winning a ticket to the Olympic games or ambition; to start campaigning for the KVF elections.

As a coach, he had a dream to take the Kenya women’s volleyball team to the Olympics in 2020, then vie for the 2021 KVF presidency.

After 10 years as a coach in Rwanda, Bitok returned to Kenya last year and set his goals.

In an interview with a local media house in June last year, Bitok said:

“Coaching is my passion, so I can’t run away from it. I want to come back and help the ladies prepare for African Games, Olympics qualifiers and the World Cup. Then in 2021, I will vie for the KVF presidency.”

Like a marathoner, who has covered 95 per cent of his race and headed to the finish line, Bitok was nearing the end of his goals as coach with the Olympic games, which had initially been slated for July this year.

But nobody had foreseen the current pandemic ravaging across the world.

“Coronavirus has affected everything,” he said.

Because of the virus, the Olympic games were pushed to next year and chances are that the KVF elections might also be postponed, although the federation has not made the announcement yet.

All this has placed Bitok’s goals and ambition in limbo.

He cannot even have a session with his players because of the measures taken by the government to stop the spread of the deadly COVID-19.

To make sure he’s occupied, Bitok has turned to farming in his farm in Uasin Gishu as he prepares for what he hopes will be a bumper harvest in August.

He does not know when he will make a trip to Nairobi to meet his players because the government has blocked all entries into the capital.

And, while not in his farm, Bitok is engaging in community service, donating foodstuff to the needy, who have also been hit by the economic downturn brought about by the COVID-19.

“I spend my day in the farm working on my maize plantation. It’s my other passion from volleyball,” he said.

Bitok has had to use video links to monitor his players’ training, they communicate via a whatsapp group and the players have to make do with individual training.

But he says the coronavirus will not stop him from taking the team to Tokyo, where he believes he will guide Kenya to its first victory at the games.

He wants to succeed where his inspirational coach Gilbert Ohanya failed.

The late Ohanya is famed to have been the first coach to take Kenya to the Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia in 2000 and followed it up win an appearance in 2004 in Athens, Greece but in all occasions, Kenya didn’t win a game.

It took Kenya 16 years and several coaches to make a return to the Olympics.

Bitok arrived from Rwanda last June after 10 years as head coach of Rwanda volleyball and guided Kenya to clinching its third Olympic ticket.

“It was always my ambition not only to coach Kenya, but to guide the team to the Olympics, and I am happy I was able to achieve this dream,” he said.