Nairobi — Over the recent past, there's one area Kenyan athletics have had a rough time to maneuver: sprints.

So when the second event of the Africa Senior Athletics Championships gets underway on Wednesday at the Nyayo National Stadium at 9:30am, six Kenyans will need to exorcise those ghosts.

"We have been having a very rough time in reigning in sprints, but I think time has come for us to show our intention and bag that elusive gold," noted Kenya's head coach, Steve Mwaniki.

Looking at the archives, one quickly notices that in the 1980s, Kenya had a galaxy of female sprinters who could match the West Africans step for step, The likes of Alice Adala, Ruth Waithera, Joyce Odhiambo, Rose Tata Muya among others matched and often beat the Nigerians.

In their prime, Alice Adala and Ruth Waithera were African champions at the 100m and the 400m respectively. Also in the early 80s, Philip Sang won the African title twice in the 110m hurdles.

Daniel Kimaiyo (1979) and Eric Keter (1993) were both African champions in the 400m hurdles.

Simon Kipkemboi won the 200m at the 1985 African championships beating Innocent Egbunike, the Nigerian legend to second place.

Kipkemboi again won the 200m at the 1987 4th All African Games, while Peter Wekesa reached the semi finals of the 1988 Olympics in the 100m. And the list goes on and on.

And when the gun sounds Wednesday morning, Nigeria's national 100m champion Blessing Okagbare will be set for another showdown with rival, Damola Osayomi, for the gold medal.

Osayomi, Africa champion, will be keen to reverse their last race results-the Mobil track and field championships held in Calabar-where she was relegated to the second position on 11.23 by Okagbare (11.06).

Osayomi, who lost the 100m last year to Okagbare, ran a new championship record time of 11.08 seconds to win the 100m.