Habari za Wiki - 12 January, 2021
Kenya to Bid World Athletics Main Event
The thought of Kenya hosting the World Athletics championships is pretty exciting. Right? It means athletics royalty from around the world coming to Kenya.
Well the bidding process for various world athletics events is open and Kenya will bid to host the 2025 World Athletics championships. Athletics Kenya President Rtd. Gen Jackson Tuwei confirmed that Kenya has already received the bidding documents.
“We are going for it. We are putting our best foot forward,” he said adding the government is ready to ensure Kenya’s bid is successful.
The issue though will be, where will the senior’s event be held? At the moment what is available is Kasarani stadium. However, will international athletes be comfortable competing at 5,889 feet above sea level? For most, especially sprinters, altitude will be a huge factor.
This would be the biggest international sporting event ever for Kenya, but the groundwork has been laid for it. In 2007 Kenya hosted the world cross country championship in Mombasa and in 2017 welcomed the world U18 athletics championships. In August this year, Kenya will host the world U20 athletics championships. For the 2025 bid, it needs to be well thought out because this is much much bigger. Fingers crossed.
Athletes Shake Off Rust in Opening Leg of AK Relay Series
Athletics Kenya held its first relay series over the weekend with athletes competing in various events from 150m to 1600m or the mile.
Some of the winners include Noah Kibet and Vivian Chebet in the 1000m and Abel Kipsang and Nancy Sang in the 1600m races.
The series is one of the three planned series before Kenya picks the team to the World Relay on 26-27 March 2021. The World Relay Championships will be held on the 1st and 2nd of May in Poland.
Kandie going for 10,000m in Tokyo
Imagine a 10,000m race at the Olympic Games with Joshua Cheptegei, Rhonex Kipruto, Mo Farah, Jacob Kiplimo, and Kibiwott Kandie! That will be fireworks. Well, we might just have that in Tokyo because Half Marathon world record holder Kibiwott Kandie is going to give a go in the 10,000m at the Tokyo Olympic Games. Kenya last won a 10,000m Olympic gold medal in 1968 courtesy of the late Naftali Temu.
Could Kandie be Kenya’s answer to the 10,000m gold drought?
Steeplechaser Hyvin Kiyeng Thinking About Road Racing
3,000m steeplechase Olympic silver medalist Hyvin Kiyeng is eyeing road racing after the 2022 World athletics championships. She was the 2015 steeplechase world champion, but after a decade on the track, it is almost time to leave the track for the younger ones. For now, her focus is on the upcoming Tokyo Olympic Games.
Kipketer Out
Alfred Kipketer, the 2014 World U20 Champion in 800m, has been banned for two years for whereabouts failure. The 800m athlete missed four tests in a span of 12 months – the first one being 27 November 2018. The Athletics Integrity Unit ( AIU) has banned Kipketer from the fourth date of his whereabouts failure, 26 November, 2019 to November 25, 2021.
Bangladesh Marathon
Races in South Asia have been getting bigger in recent years, and seems like Bangladesh is keen to be part of that trend.
Kenya’s Angela Tanui was the winner of this year’s Bangladesh Marathon. Angela crossed the line in 2:29:04. Jacob Keter Kendagor was the best performing Kenyan male with a third place finish in a time of 2:13:12.
What’s the Future of Pacing?
Wave light technology is a hot topic among track athletes right now. Lights run around an inner ring of the track at a designated pace, helping set a perfect pace. The track world records of 2020 showed that this can be super helpful, and looks like it’ll be a big part of future races.
One drawback is that many Kenyan athletes make a big part of their income by running as rabbits, setting the pace for athletes chasing super fast times. Wavelight certainly puts those jobs at risk as the lights are more precise it does look pretty cool on TV.
From our perspective: it is thrilling to see athletes push the boundaries of human endurance. But the sport is at its best when it’s competitions, not just solo runners doing their thing. So we hope as much as investing in pacesetters and wavelight technology, event organisers focus first and foremost on great head-to-head matchups.
Non-Kenyan news
Great Ethiopian Run Back On
Abe Gashahun and Tsigie Gebreselama are the winners of the 20th edition of the Great Ethiopian Run. Abe got within a second of the men’s course record to win the men's race in a time of 28:20 while Tsigie finally won after a third and second place finish in 2018 and 2019. Her winning time was 32:33.
More of a running festival, the Great Ethiopian Run was started by athletics Ethiopian legend Haile Gebrselassie, Peter Middlebrook and Abi Masefield in 2001. It’s normally in November with 50,000 participants, but with the pandemic and unrest in Ethiopia got bumped to January and narrowed down to a still massive 12,500 runners.
Tokyo in Doubt
When you mention the Olympic Games, for Kenya it equals athletics glory on the world stage. And the thought of a likelihood of postponing this year’s Olympic Games is giving athletes sleepless nights. All the same, the reality of it is that there is no guarantee the Olympic Games will happen as planned due to Covid 19. As it stands, the residents don’t want the event to go on either as Japan battles the third wave of Coronavirus.
From Us At Enda
It’s here! You might have seen the 1 minute teaser CNN put out in December, but now the full segment about Enda from CNN’s Connecting Africa is out. Check it out:
From The Enda Community
If we gave awards for best use of Enda shoes in an outfit, Joy Rockchica would certainly be in the finals with this excellent look she posted up on IG:
Put together your own look with a fresh pair, just hit those shopping links above.