Gold Coast offers plenty of lessons for Kenyan sports
What you need to know:
- Such events, as we learnt from the U-18 World Athletics Championships last year, come with a lot of benefits. Our visit to Gold Coast must serve as learning curve.
- Kenyans may be hard workers but they have a problem with time.
- We also need to change our attitude towards sports.
I am impressed with the level of sports development in this part of the world. I am talking about Gold Coast, Australia, the 2018 hosts for the 21st edition of the Commonwealth Games.
Indeed, everything in this country also known as “Down Under” considering the distance, is on point and the structures are working perfectly.
For the Kenyans, who are here, there is less stress in locating what you want and where you want to go. Training venues are within reach and transport is spot on. All one needs to do is to keep time.
The way I see it, the organizers of the Commonwealth Games here started work the moment they won the bid and they were ready to host the games as early as mid-last year.
I don’t need to overemphasize the situation back home considering that we all know how we failed to host the Chan Cup and what kind of last minute pressure we had to undergo to pull off the World Under-18 Championships.
So who bewitched Kenya? I am asking this because we are never really ready when it comes to hosting events of such magnitude. Last minute rush is the order of the day and this as we all know comes with the prize hence the need to tackle things within the timelines.
As we speak, our main stadiums in Nairobi are under renovation and federations have been forced to go as far as Narok and Machakos among other places to run their calendars.
This is not only expensive but inconveniencing for the federations, most of whom have meagre resources especially after sponsors like SportPesa pulled out.
Considering that the top leadership of the Sports Ministry will be here in Gold Coast, I am sure they will take their interest beyond just competition.
Such events, as we learnt from the U-18 World Athletics Championships last year, come with a lot of benefits. Our visit to Gold Coast must serve as learning curve.
Kenyans may be hard workers but they have a problem with time.
We also need to change our attitude towards sports.
I am surprised that federation officials nowadays have the audacity to incite athletes. We are definitely inventing a very bad trend and to be brutally honest, this is not the way to go.
We know there are those shortcomings we have had to face with suppliers but it doesn’t call for the kind of actions we have seen lately including threats.
As we begin the Games on Wednesday, I want to take this early opportunity to wish all Kenyan athletes the best of luck.
