An extremely busy season awaits Kenyan sport in 2020.
This will be a most significant year for the country, the climax of which will be Nairobi’s hosting of the World Under-20 Athletics Championships from July 7-12, the return of the Safari Rally to the World Rally Championships from July 16-19 and, of course, the Tokyo Olympic Games from July 24 to August 9.
But these and many other competitions across the sporting codes — including the possibility of Nairobi hosting a leg of the World Athletics Continental Tour — will require meticulous planning and watertight financing.
That’s why we support Sports Principal Secretary Kirimi Kaberia’s directive that federations hand in their budgets by December 31 to be sure of funding.
It’s also gratifying to see Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed appoint the Steering Committee to the Tokyo Olympics, as early planning will avoid the fiasco that visited Kenya’s participation in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.
The prompt gazetting of this committee will ensure preparations start next week.
The National Olympic Committee of Kenya has already picked Kenya Volleyball Federation president Waithaka Kioni and Athletics Kenya’s Barnabas Korir as chef de mission and general team manager, respectively, for Team Kenya to Tokyo.
The two vastly experienced individuals have hit the ground running and, from their delivery at last year’s Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, we certainly have our athletes in safe pairs of hands.
Through prudent, transparent and early preparations, CS Amina and PS Kaberia must ensure we don’t merely make up the numbers at global competitions, but fight for podium places.
With mounting concern over the slow progress in readying facilities for the World U-20 at Kasarani, the two have work cut out for them.
May we have another world-beating year for Kenya.
