Broke Nyeri County ‘lacked Sh34,800 to host x-country’

With Nyeri-based four-time Lewa Marathon champion Philemon Baaru enlisted among top athletes lined up for this Saturday’s rich Discovery 10-kilometre Road Race in Nyahururu, it is emerging that Nyeri County couldn’t raise a paltry Sh34,800 to host last weekend’s county cross country championship.

The competition was called off for the first time after the local Athletics Kenya branch said it only had Sh15,200 in their account that wasn’t enough to foot the bills for the competition against a budget of Sh50,000 in what was once Kenya’s preferred athletics training destination.

Among the legendary athletes who have trained in Nyeri on the way to stardom is Olympic legend Kipchoge Keino.

It was, therefore, shocking that Nyeri County, not even with the handsome financial base of the Nyeri County Government, could not muster the additional Sh34,800 to expose the country’s athletes, an amount hardly enough to make the governor’s daily pocket allowance.

Athletics Kenya’s Nyeri sub-branch secretary Daniel Gachara said they had just Sh15,200 in their account while the Nyeri County sports executive Lucy Wanyitu admitted money for the cross country championship had not been factored in the county’s annual budget.

She promised to include it in the next financial year.

Subsequently, Nyeri County athletes will miss the regional championships to pick athletes who will compete at the National Cross Country Championships on February 18 in Nairobi.

In the process, some athletes from Nyeri who had hoped to catch the selectors’ eyes and gain entry into Kenya’s team to next month’s IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Kampala have seen their dreams go up in smoke because of a paltry Sh34,800 AK and the Nyeri County Government couldn’t raise.

Meanwhile, Nyeri County Athletics Kenya sub-branch chairman Mutahi Kahiga nonetheless encouraged the demoralised local athletes to turn up for the Nyahururu 10-kilometre Road Race as a build-up to Central Region Cross Country Championships to be held later in the month.

This Saturday’s road race will be in honour of 2008 Olympic marathon champion Samuel Wanjiru who was from the area.

Baaru, who is a red-hot favourite to carry the day, has been missing in action since August last year following a groin strain but said yesterday that his body is responding well.

He will be out to test his shape a week after he won the Murang’a County Cross Country Championships’ 10-kilometre race.

“My leg is responding well to training sessions. I’m glad that I will honour our legend marathoner the best way. This is a race that every runner should participate as we remember Wanjiru,” said Baaru.

The Nation caught up with him doing final speed work at Ruring’u Stadium in Nyeri where he was in company of a pack of others who included two-time Mombasa Marathon champion Paul Maina.

The duo have been training together this season and as Maina revealed, the teamwork is bearing fruits already since they both dominated Murang’a cross country last weekend with Maina second behind Baaru.

Others at the training were James Gitau, Julius Maina, Stephen Kariuki and Ibrahim Mohamed.