In Silesia, Poland

After a 12-hour journey, Team Kenya arrived safely in Silesia Wednesday for this weekend's World Relays Championship. The event is being held in Europe for the first time since its inception in 2014. 

The team is optimistic that they will perform well after good preparations during the bubble training in Kasarani in Nairobi as precaution to the Covid-19 virus.

According to the team manager Kennedy Tanui, the team is expected to perform well despite the Covid-19 challenges which affected training for various athletes who were later dropped due to medical reasons. 

"We are happy that we arrived safely and the team is in high spirits. It has been a long journey but we want to appreciate the efforts made by Athletics Kenya to make sure athletes trained in a bubble due to the pandemic which has disorganised our lives," said Tanui.

Team captain Aron Koech told Nation Sport that they are going to do all it takes to make sure they show the world that Kenya is also good in sprints.

“We have always done well in various events and we expect to continue with the dominance despite stiff competition from various European countries. Our training went on well and I believe each team is going to perform well this weekend,” said Koech, who will be participating in the 400m shuttle hurdles relay.

His compatriot Mike Mokamba also said that the team looks good and expects that they will be able to perform better compared to the previous editions.

“Our target is to run well and if possible get the medals because we were given the opportunity by the federation and the government to train under the bubble as one way of avoiding virus contamination,” said Mokamba, who will feature in the 4x200m relays.

And with the coronavirus still on the rise across the world, World Athletics has made it mandatory to all visitors arriving to go through Covid-19 tests.

The athletes were supposed to go to their allocated rooms awaiting Covid-19 results which came out after two hours before being accredited to access the training grounds. 

The tests will be done after every 48 hours in what the Local Organising Committee said is for the safety of all athletes.

Upon arrival, the team was picked by buses and headed straight to the testing centre.

The event will see athletes qualify automatically for the World Athletics Championships in Oregon and the Olympics Games in Tokyo, Japan which shall be held in July and August.

The first eight in the 4x100m, 4x400m and 4x400m races shall automatically qualify for the Olympics Games and if the country already qualified through the World Athletics Championships in Doha 2019, the remaining places will be allocated to the World Athletics Performance lists of June 2021.

The first 10 in the 4x100m and 4x400m and first 12 in the Mixed 4x400m will automatically qualify for the World Championships in Oregon next year.