All the best Team Kenya
After the unique and colourful opening ceremony of the 33rd Olympic Games in the French capital, Paris, last evening, it’s now time for the country to get down to business.
Team Kenya that is represented by 70 athletes made up of 38 men and 32 women taking part in six sports. The team hopes for improved results, having collected 10 medals, all in athletics, from the 2020 Tokyo Games. They were four gold, four silver and two bronze medals.
Kenya’s performance at the Tokyo Games that were delayed to 2021 due to Covid-19 dropped from the country’s all-time best show at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games when the country got 13 medals - six gold, six silver and one bronze.
Besides athletics that is arguably the country’s main medal provider at the Olympics, many hope that the national volleyball team, Malkia Strikers, fencing queen Alexandra Ndolo, judoka Zeddy Cherotich and the two swimmers Maria Maria Brunlehner and Ridhwani Abubakar will write a different script.
Only two disciplines - athletics and boxing - have contributed to Kenya’s 113 medal haul from the Summer Olympics; 35 gold, 42 silver and 36 bronze. Boxing has seven medals; one gold, one silver and five bronze.
Legendary Philip Waruinge had come close to winning gold when he settled for silver in featherweight at the 1972 Munich Games after claiming bronze at the 1968 Mexico City Games.
Then the late Robert Wangila changed the landscape when he made history as the first African to win a boxing gold medal at the Olympics during the 1988 Seoul Games.
Kudos to the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOC-K), the Ministry of Youth Affairs, Creative Economy and Sports, federations and Anti-doping Agency of Kenya (ADAK) for giving Team Kenya the best preparations.
