What next for elegant sports facilities after IAAF meet?

The Local Organising Committee (LOC) is yet to hand over the venues back to their owners. The Athletics Village will be handed back to Kenyatta University (KU) on Monday while Kasarani Stadium will be given back to the Sports Kenya late next week.

“We are now doing asset tallying and a post-event audit before handing the venues back to their owners,” LOC chief executive Mwangi Muthee told Sunday Standard.

“We can host any championship but the challenge is can we maintain the stadia after that? This does not mean repainting once in a while or closing them down,” he added.

Until the IAAF games last week, Kenya had not hosted a global athletics event since the 1987 All Africa Games. Kasarani Stadium was purposely built for the games 30 years ago and since then no new stadium has been constructed.

World class stadia

A promise by the Jubilee administration to construct five new world class stadia during its first term in office was not effected and the maintenance of Kenya’s two largest stadia – Kasarani and Nyayo -- has been left to corporates. Meanwhile, the two stadia have been subjected to all manner of events from political rallies to crusades and concerts, which put pressure on their playing surfaces and facilities.

Peter Njenga, a veteran athletics journalist who covered the All Africa Games in 1987, says the decay of Kasarani began immediately the torch was dimmed.

“We had at that time the most modern stadium in the continent, even better than the ones in South Africa, but for seven years after the games, Kasarani was barely used. It just decayed,” says Njenga.

“In fact, the only time it was full before last week was in 1997 when Kenya played Nigeria and I can’t foresee fans filling it the way they did in the near future. The legacy of these games will undoubtedly be Kenyatta University.” The Nyayo Hostel Complex at KU was transformed into a three-star hotel status. The rooms were tiled, ablution blocks upgraded with marble finishes and kitchens remodelled. Additionally, each hostel block was fitted with Wi-fi, all the roads in the institution re-tarmacked and a doping testing centre constructed.

When Sunday Standard visited the university this week, a contractor was preparing to lay a new tartan track shipped in from Italian manufacturer, Mondo. IAAF had pledged to gift the institution with a High Performance Training Centre (HPTC) as a legacy for the games. The only other HPTC in Kenya is in Eldoret and there are just 15 such centres in the world.

Some 5,000 students were told to seek accommodation outside the university in January to give way for renovations of the Nyayo Complex.

“We are converting the complex back to hostels and using the facilities to expand our sports academy. So far, we are the only university in East and Central Africa that will have a tartan track, which means we can bid for so many events,” said KU Vice Chancellor Prof Paul Wainaina.

“The fact that the government chose us is testimony of their belief that we have the capacity to maximise on these facilities. We will even use our money to protect them for our students and future sporting events.”