Sporting activities in Kenya to resume

Edwin Kosgei, photo by Justin Lagat

Justin Lagat sent this note to us about how the country of Kenya is opening back up for athletics.

I am not sure if it was because of yesterday’s announcement by the president to reopen sporting activities in the country or the rains that rendered most other roads unusable by runners; but this morning, a popular route used by runners here in Uasin Gishu looked exactly like a warm-up area would look a few minutes to the start of a big marathon race.

With the positivity rate of the COVID 19 infections in the country coming down to around 5%, the president has decided to open up sports in the country.

There are a lot of athletics events and activities to be done, and it even appears that it may already be too late for others to happen.

County and regional championships are expected to happen as soon as possible so that teams can be selected to compete at the national championships that had earlier been scheduled for 10^th June, and the Olympic trials scheduled for the 26^th.

There should be competitions as well to get the probable junior athletes to be invited to attend trials for the World Athletics U20 Championships.

The World Athletics Diamond League events are beginning later this month and will go ahead until after the Olympic Games. Kenyan athletes have often used local competitions to gauge their fitness levels before proceeding to these major competitions with agents using them to spot and recruit new talents.

Following the opening of sporting activities, the 3^rd edition of Eldoret City Marathon will now be held on 6^th June 2021.The new date is exactly 30 days from the day the announcement was made; this Thursday on 6^th May.

There will be limited time for the runners to prepare well, but it is a great relief to the local runners, and a few foreigners, who had already registered for the race.

Most of the runners have never had a chance to race from early last year when the COVID 19 pandemic struck. The Eldoret City Marathon was the only road running event that had been planned to take place this year in Kenya and it is great news to note that it will happen in less than a month from now.

Everything was already in place before the race was postponed on 31^st March; a few days after Kenya’s president had announced the suspension of all sporting activities in the country. The organizers had made the hard decision to postpone the race that was only 11 days away from happening.

Consequently, the organizers have very little to do as they wait for the race day.

Author

Justin Lagat

Since 2013, Justin Lagat has written for RunBlogRun. His weekly column is called A view from Kenya. Justin writes about the world of Kenyan athletics on a weekly basis and during championships, provides us additional insights into the sport.

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