What next for Kenya after World Youth Championship bid victory?

Kenya’s organisational skills and infrastructure face a stern test as preparations to host the 2017 World Youth Championship begin.

The Kenyan government has received credit for giving the bid the final push by making assurances that it will provide enough security and help fund the event but more will need to be done to upgrade roads, training and competition facilities in the capital.

“We will be required to train technical officials, recruit volunteers as well as make necessary security arrangements and look for sponsors to supplement the government’s efforts,” Sports Commissioner Gordon Oluoch told Nation Sport.

The Kenyan government has pledged to pump in an estimated Sh800m and more is expected from the corporate world.

Sports Cabinet Secretary Hassan Wario led Team Kenya’s successful bid presentation on Tuesday night in Monaco that also had the 2014 Diamond League winners Mercy Cherono and Jairus Birech and Athletics Kenya chief executive officer Isaac Mwangi.

Nairobi’s Nyayo National Stadium that hosted the 2010 Africa Championships will be used as the main venue with two alternative venues among them the Ministry of Transport in Industrial Area and Kenya Prisons grounds in Langata being considered for warm up owing to their proximity to the venue.

It will be the second time the athletics world will converge in Kenya after Mombasa successfully hosted the 2007 World Cross Country Championships.

Buenos Aires - Argentina and Greensboro - United States of America withdrew in the last minute but the Kenyan delegation in Monaco still took to the stage to present their bid and lure the IAAF Council to pick Nairobi.

READY TO HOST

Africa will be hosting the World Youth Championship for the second time since inception after Morocco hosted the 2005 event.

“We are ready to host 1,400 athletes and 600 team officials from 170 countries in Nairobi,” declared Wario, who promised a big and better event that the 2007 World Cross.

“Some people wanted it to happen, some wished it would happen, others who succeeded made it happen. We have it!” said Cherono after the victory.

“The success of the event should set the stage for Kenya to host the major world championships but we need to do more to achieve that,” said Cherono, the 2010 World Cross Country junior champion as well as the 2008 and 2010 World Junior 3,000m champion.

“It was nice to represent my country as a youth ambassador and I hope this event leads to wider acceptance of the sport that has brought us so much across the nation,” the 21-year-old Birech, who bagged the Continental Cup and Diamond League crowns in a stellar 2014 said from Monaco.

The National Olympic Committee of Kenya president Kipchoge Keino said proper planning involving stakeholders will be imperative. “The country will be on the world’s radar and we must pull out something credible,” said Kipchoge.

World marathon record-holder Dennis Kimetto said it’s the Kenyan athletes who won in Monaco adding that its success will be a yardstick in hosting many other major events in future.

“We should now be thinking on how we can build an ultra modern stadium in Mombasa to host the main World Championships,” said Kimetto.

World 1,500m champion Asbel Kiprop said: “The youth of the world coming to Kenya for the track and field world championships! Wow! It will be great and inspiration to the youth in Kenya.”