Nairobi Continental Tour to be known as Kipchoge Keino Classic

Kipchoge Keino /Getty https://cdn.standardmedia.co.ke/images

The Nairobi World Athletics Continental Tour will be known as Kipchego Keino Classic, the meet organisers announced Tuesday.

The work towards hosting the one-day showpiece September 26 is progressing well. The inaugural World Athletics event was supposed to have been staged on May 2, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Barnaba Korir, the event director, said the organising committee has been working to ensure all goes well ahead of the meet.

With the changes to the calendar Finnish city, Turku will host city the opening leg on August 11.

“The committee has settled on Kipchoge Keino Classic as the name of the Nairobi meet in honour of athletics legend. We are glad and privileged that he has accepted the honour,” Korir told the media yesterday.

“We have also designed the logo for the event, which will be unveiled soon.

 “We have been in touched with various race organisers across the global to ensure we have a successful event.”

Korir added: “We are conscious of the international travel restrictions put in place by different countries, but hope that by September they will have been eased.”

Athletics Kenya President Jackson Tuwei also disclosed that the federation is restructuring its calendar to enable Kenyan runners to have a chance to prepare before the start of the Season later in the year.

Diamond League series could return in August according to the shortened, provisional calendar published by World Athletics.

The first event on the calendar is the Monaco meeting on August 14.

 “We really sympathize with athletes, having prepared then the events are cancelled. We are preparing for the calendar which will help our athletes to use as preparations ahead of Diamond Leagues and Continental Tour,” said Tuwei.