David Macharia
19 August 2005
Nairobi — Lack of a proper development agenda for athletics was yesterday blamed for the drop in the standards of the sport in Kenya.
The first man to break the 27 minutes barrier in the 10,000 metres, Yobes Ondieki, said the rest of the world had caught up with Kenya and the country had no idea of how to react.
Speaking in Eldoret, Ondieki said this was the reason nobody was able to explain why the country did not do as expected in the Helsinki World Championships.
"The rest of the world realised the importance of the sport and heavily invested in it while we remained stagnant bragging that we had more than enough natural talent," he said.
He said due to the amount of money coming from sports and sports people, many countries had invested heavily to develop and nurture their talent.
He proposes an overhaul of Athletics Kenya to inject fresh blood in the running of the sport in the country saying people in the federation had run out of ideas.
He said because of this apparent lack of foresight at the federation, the country has been left living in the past and that it was becoming very difficult to beat opponents in meets like the Helsinki world championships.
Ondieki, now a coach and real estate developer in Eldoret, called for the establishment of Kenya Grand Prix races saying many sport apparel manufacturers would be willing to support the venture.
He, however, said the companies could only put their money when there is transparency on how it is being spent.
Ondieki faults both the government and AK for the situation the country now finds itself in in athletics terms. He said the two parties had failed to nurture talent through the country's education system.
He said the country needed a law that would ensure children don't drop out of school for athletics. He said he had received scholarships that could take athletes to academic institutions in the United States of America but no one appears to be interested.
Admitting that poverty had driven some families into forcing their young children to take up running to supplement family incomes, Ondieki said the government should come up with a requirement that head teachers be held responsible for any student who drops out of school for athletics.He said illiterate runners can easily be manipulated by agents because they are just like robots unable to control their own programmes.
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