Hardloopnieuws

Limo to lead Forces assault at Ngong meet

Limo is dit jaar voor het WK cross de grote uitdager van Kenenisia Bekele

Lees hier alles over het topcrossweekeinde in Kenya

Door Peter Njenga

World 5,000 metres champion Benjamin Limo will lead the strongest team in the 4km race at the national cross country championships on Saturday. Entered by the Armed Forces, Limo and his colleague John Kibowen, who have three world titles between themselves, could make a repeat of the Armed Forces championships two weeks ago when he won in a sprint after going through a tough course at Engineers Battalion, Thika.

Trials
Limo is training with 36 colleagues and after Saturday, will stay in touch with the Commonwealth Games team. He is one of the two athletes who have confirmed participation in the Commonwealth Games. In order to avoid a clash, Athletics Kenya has pushed the residential camp for cross-country to March 17 after the final trials on March 4. Limo said he will manage, so did Isabella Ochichi, who will compete in the 5,000m and the short course in the world championships. The national championships will bring together 504 athletes from the 14 affiliates of Athletics Kenya. But like in the past, the meeting, which also doubles as a round of the IAAF Cross Challenge, has failed to attract foreigners who complain of the altitude factor. The provincial squad named on Saturday will continue with training before the final trials. Athletics Kenya secretary David Okeyo said they broke away from tradition following the advice of coaches as keeping athletes in camp for a month had its drawbacks.

Gemenebest spelen
Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Games camp will begin tomorrow and not February 16 as the management committee had planned after the Government said it wanted the camp started immediately. Sports minister Maina Kamanda issued this directive last Saturday, saying the squad was now the responsibility of the Government. “The Government will ensure the team gets all the necessary support and I would not like to hear that it failed because we did not accord it all the support at our disposal,” he said. Presiding over his first athletics function since he took over the docket, Kamanda challenged sports administrators to tell Kenyans why all disciplines, apart from athletics, were doing badly. “We used to be good in boxing, swimming and football but what has gone wrong now? We want to hear Kenya is excelling in all sports disciplines.” He also said that he will do his best to see the sports policy is expeditiously enacted and asked for the input of those in management. Kamanda said those in-charge of sports must come up with a welfare scheme to assist sports personalities in time of need especially on medical issues. He was pained by the suffering pioneer and retired sports people have been subjected to like hospitalised football legend Joe Kadenge. Such a scheme could be supported by the government, well wishers and donors, he said. He would also like to see house hold names in the level of Kipchoge Keino being created in sports.

© Kenyan News