Former world cross country champion Paul Tergat has been nominated by the National Olympic Committee of Kenya to succeed retiring Kipchoge Keino as an International Olympic Committee honorary member.

Kipchoge who will still sit as an honorary life member confirmed that NOC-Kenya have already settled on Tergat as his successor. "My executive and a few other federations have proposed Tergat to the IOC who will sit and peruse his papers which, upon approval should see him as an IOC member," said Keino.

He said the candidate must undergo a rigorous process including legal and sports background checks as well as their current participation in sports related activities.

Meanwhile, former world marathon record holder Tegla Loroupe has called on NOC-Kenya to consider retired athletes when assigning officials for international championships.

She observed the athletes who have done a great deal to bring glory to the country are never given opportunities to accompany athletes to big meetings as is seen elsewhere in the world.

"Retired athletes are some of the country's ambassadors and should be considered for these trips," she said In another development Keino has called on sports federation to forward budget for the next four years.

He said this will help NOC-Kenya plan ahead and facilitate preparations as they hope to maximise participation in the 2016 Olympic Games.

Speaking yesterday during the NOC-KENYA annual general meeting, Kipchoge said: "We want to have a budget for every federation so that we can facilitate their training programme."

"When we have them (budgets), we will then give them to the ministry of sports and copy them to parliament, who will be mandated to approve the finances of every ministry."

He added that the country also needs to concentrate more on investment in the sports industry since what is being done at the moment is not enough.

"Without reconsidering our investment in sports, we will not have the kind of representation we would to have at the 2016 Rio Olympics," he said.

He added that such investments will be key in the identification, nurturing as well as training of athletes for competitive events. "We don't need to react just a year to events as we usually do. We need to start now if we are to achieve anything in the future."