Oscar Pilipili
22 April 2008
Nairobi — KENYA Hockey Union (KHU) will hire more physical trainers for national teams.
KHU Secretary General, Peter Kiruma, said the teams need qualified people to give players physical training.
"We have discovered that our players are physically inferior and that is why they collapse in the second half," he said.
"We must include physical trainers in our training programme for our players to improve on this aspect," he said at City Park Stadium yesterday.
The women's national team lost all their five matches to finish last at the world Olympic Games qualifiers that ended in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Sunday.
Kiruma defended the poor show, saying the team was inexperienced and the results were expected.
"Schools and African hockey is very different from world hockey," he said.
"For example, South Africa beat us 8-0 in African Olympics qualifiers in Nairobi last year, but they lost to Belarus 0-12 two weeks later," he explained.
The official said most of the players who traveled had just come out of college and were yet to play even in the league.
The battered team return tonight at 10pm and will spend the night at Moi International Sports Centre before the camp is declared closed tomorrow at 11am.
Meanwhile, KHU scouts have selected players for the under-17 Africa Olympic Games qualifiers in Nairobi next year.
Kiruma said the players were selected during the national secondary schools games at Mang'u last week.
"Our scouts who were at Mang'u have selected a squad for the national under-17 team which would be announced soon," he added.
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