Sports awards motivate athletes

Deputy President William Ruto (centre) and part of winners during the 14th Edition of the SOYA gala awards at KICC, Nairobi on Jan 17, 2018. [Jonah Onyango| Standard]

Kenyan athletes remain the most viable conveyor of good news and hope, given our highly politicised environment.

They inspire patriotism whenever they are out there conquering the world in sports tournaments.

And that is why honouring our athletes is a great initiative and goes a long way to motivate them.

For this reason, the Soya awards continue to play a big role and needs to be supported fully. Last year’s overall winner, Paralympian Samuel Muchai, was inspiring given that he is a special case and as he said in his acceptance speech, it will motivate more to work even harder in their sporting fields.

By naming Muchai as the overall winner, Soya panelists made him just the third Paralympian to win the coveted award after Henry Wanyoike (2004) and Simon Cherono (2013).

It was also great that Deputy President William Ruto made time to attend the awards ceremony. We only hope that the authorities will tone down political rhetoric and put aside enough resources to support sports.

The DP’s announcement that the government will step in to support clubs and federations affected by the withdrawal of SportPesa as their sponsors is also welcome.

Still, clubs and sports federations should not sit pretty hoping for tokenism or handouts, but rather explore ways of expanding sources of income and a variety of sponsors.