Kenya could hold athletics trials in France for world event

The 19th edition of the World Athletics Indoor Championships will be hosted at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland, from March 1 to 3, 2024.

This will be a month after the Silver Label Indoor Meeting Miramas Metropole on February 2 in the Southern France city of Miramas which is seen as an appropriate venue to double up as host of the Kenyan trials.

Kenya has never held trials before for the World Athletics Indoor Championships, with athletes traditionally selected based on their availability or scattered performances on a winter indoor circuit rarely embraced by Kenyan runners.

Meeting Miramas Metropole technical director Patrice Ouvrier-Buffet said on Tuesday that his meeting is willing to handle the technical aspects of the Kenyan trials and also facilitate the selected Kenyan athletes to train in Miramas, southern France, for one month ahead of the Glasgow championships.

“But Athletics Kenya and the Kenyan government should support the team with the costs of transport and accommodation and we will be happy to give the technical support and either have the Kenyan trials during the Meeting Miramas Metropole, or organise a special time trial for Kenya after the Miramas meeting,” Ouvrier-Buffet told Nation Sport exclusively after a press conference launching the fifth edition of the February 2, 2024, Meeting Miramas Metropole.

Tuesday’s press briefing was also attended by the Mayor of Miramas Frederic Vigouroux, Cyrille Cataldo, a representative from the Meeting Miramas Metropole’s main sponsors Credit Mutuel, regional sports president (Alpes and Cot d’Azur Province) Herve Liberman alongside promising French pole vaulter, Robin Emig.

Also present was Miramas Athletic Club President Christophe Catoni.

“The city of Miramas is the second home for Team Kenya and we will be happy to host them here as they prepare for the world indoors,” Ouvrier-Buffet added.

Athletics Kenya official Barnabas Korir – who is expected to arrive in Miramas on Wednesday - confirmed that the discussions were on and that the federation would give details on the final decision later.

Korir is expected in Miramas along with National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOC-K) secretary general Francis Mutuku to also discuss Team Kenya’s preparations for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

NOC-K has picked Miramas as Team Kenya’s pre-Olympic training base and, already, several Kenyan athletes have been in and out of the Southern France city on training stints.

Kenya’s Africa 100 metres champion and record holder Ferdinand Omanyala reacted positively to the proposals for the France trials, saying they would also offer good exposure to Kenyan athletes.

“We had discussed this before and it would be good to take athletes, even those who have never run indoors before, for these trials because in Kenya we have never had trials for the World Indoors,” Omanyala, who won the 60-metre dash at the Miramas meeting on February 4 this year in 6.63 seconds, a Kenyan national record, said on Tuesday.

He was to later improve that record to the current national best time of 6.54 seconds in Lievin, France, at the Meeting Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais some 11 days later.

“Our only request is for Athletics Kenya, and the government, to buy this idea as this will give us the right environment for indoors competition and motivate the athletes,” said Omanyala, who failed to make the final of the 2022 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade (Serbia) where Italy’s Lamont Marcell Jacobs beat American Christian Coleman in a photo-finish final to win the gold medal in 6.41 seconds.

French 400m hurdles legend Stephan Diagana, who is also the meeting ambassador for the Meeting Miramas Metropole, chipped in and encouraged Kenyan athletes to take advantage of this opportunity to also launch their preparations for the July 26 to August 11 Paris Olympic Games.

“Having trials is always good… to have all the athletics forces of one country (competing) at the same time is very good in making a team,” Diagana, the 1997 (Athens) World Championships 400 metres hurdles gold medallist, told Nation Sport exclusively in Miramas on Tuesday.

“During trials you can’t avoid competition, because you will face the best in your country, and to be the best in your country is the first step to the world level.”

Diagana, who now heads an athletics club in Nice, Southern France, noted that Kenya has top athletes in the sprints who can launch their season well indoors.

“The winter indoor season is important for the jumps, throws and sprint events, and can also be useful for the 400, 800 and 1,500 metres to get ready for the summer season,” the 54-year-old legend explained.

“For the Kenyan athletes in these events, the indoor season can be really interesting because they can score points, which is important for qualifying (for the World Athletics Indoor Championships), but they can also use this opportunity to adapt their spring season training.

“You build up in December, January and February and then you get into meetings (in March) where you can have the real test in real competition – this is a good way to build into the summer season in April and May.

“For me as a 400m hurdles runner, it was very important as I was running 200m to improve my speed, and I was running 400m flat as well and it gave me a lot of information on how my training is going because it was in real conditions.”

Diagana fondly recalls his duel with former Kenyan national champion Eric Keter at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games.

“The first Kenyan hurdler I met was Eric Keter… we were in the same heat at the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games and he was running like crazy!

“I even remember his time… he ran 48.28 (seconds) and he was the fastest in the heats and I was the second fastest, but it was thanks to him that I qualified for the second round!”

“I also remember Barnabas Kinyor… You have so many athletes in the 400 metres flat, the 800 metres and the sprints, and you can have athletes running low 47 (seconds), or below 47 in the hurdles because you have the talent for that.

“When you have people like (Olympic 800m champion) Emmanuel Korir running 44.3, being an 800-metre runner, shows you have quality for all the events – just like you have Julius Yego for the javelin throw… you have talent for all the events.”

Miramas Mayor Frederic Vigouroux welcomed Kenyan athletes to his city saying the locals have already embraced Team Kenya as their team of choice.

“They (locals) have even been asking me who I will cheer to get the gold medals between France and Kenya, but to me, its both!,” he joked.

The light moment was also embraced by Herve Liberman, who is also the French Olympic Committee’s representative for Southern France: “But the Kenyans should make sure they don’t take all the medals from France!,” he added.

Miramas offers ideal training conditions for elite athletes with its tranquility, favourable weather conditions most of the year and variety of first-class stadiums and sports training facilities.

It’s not uncommon for a country’s national trials in various competitions to be held on foreign land with Ethiopia traditionally holding their trials for the 10,000m, for instance, in the Dutch city of Hengelo.