Tuwei: AK has put forward strong case for global award

Athletics Kenya president Jack Tuwei is confident that his federation will bag the 2021 World Athletics Member Federation Award.

Tuwei has said that the country has done better than five other nominees in terms of organisation and delivery this year despite the huge challenge posed by Covid-19 pandemic.

AK has been nominated for 2021 World Athletics Member Federation Award alongside five other federations from the rest of the world. They are Athletics Australia (AUS from the Oceania region, Czech Athletic Federation (CZE from Europe, Costa Rica Athletics Federation (CRC) from North and Central America and the Caribbean, Ecuador Athletics Federation (ECU) from Southern America and Japan Association of Athletics Federations (JPN) from  Asia.

“We did extremely well this year managing to host two world-class events, the World Athletics Under-20 Championships and the Kip Keino Classic which is a World Athletics Gold Tour event without any hitches,” Tuwei said.

“However, this is like any other competition and we leave it to the panelists to decide.”

Announcement of winners

The winner will be announced at the 2021 World Athletics Awards to be held virtually on December 1. The ceremony will be streamed live on the World Athletics YouTube channel.

Athletics Kenya was also nominated last year when the category made its debut in World Athletics Awards but it’s the Polish Athletics Association that won.

Olympic champions Eliud Kipchoge (marathon) and Faith Chepngétich (1,500m) are the only Kenyans to be nominated for the Male and Female of the 2021 Award respectively.

The Member Federation Award honours a national governing body that has gone above and beyond the requirement to serve its athletes, fans and the greater community.

Each of the six area associations was asked to nominate three member federations. A vote by the World Athletics Executive Board selected the six finalists, one from each area association.

Why was Kenya nominated for the second year running?

So often the leading African nation on medals tables at international events, Kenya maintained that record at the Tokyo Olympic Games, placing third overall behind USA and Italy with 10 medals - four gold, four silver and two bronze (4-4-2). USA had 7-12-7 while Italy 5-0-0.

Kenya also topped the medals table at the 2021 World Athletics Under-20 Championships at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani Nairobi 21, where they earned 16 medals; eight gold, a silver and seven bronze.

While most of the country’s medals from international events in 2021 came in endurance disciplines, the likes of Ferdinand Omanyala – who set an African 100m record of 9.77 at the Continental Tour Gold event in Nairobi – showed Kenya’s diversity as an athletics nation.

Along with hosting the World Under-20 Championships and the Continental Tour Gold meeting in Nairobi, Kenya has been an active player in the UN’s Sports for Climate Action initiative.

Despite some hiccups with Covid-19 restrictions, Australia was able to host two Continental Tour Bronze and one Continental Tour Silver meetings.

 Although the restrictive measures in the Czech Republic fundamentally affected sport from the autumn of 2020 to the spring of 2021, the Czech Athletic Association decided to follow up on the successful ‘Back on Track’ project.