Kenyan skier Sabrina Wanjiku upset afer Winter Olympics' dream dashed

Kenya’s Alpine skier Sabrina Wanjiku Simader is crestfallen at not being able to feature in the upcoming 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics slated for February 4 to 20.

The 23-year-old currently based in Hause, Austria took to social media to explain her absence to her fans.

She stated that she is switching her focus to the 2022 Qatar Winter World Cup set for November and the International Ski Federation (FIS) Races throughout the year, 2023 Alpine Ski World Championships and the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics.

“Ski racing is my destiny and biggest dream. Dreams also have the very dark flip side of disappointments.

“In July 2021, I was in Kenya to visit my family, to organise and plan with team Kenya. They promised to finance my team in the preparation season, especially the speed camps, which is my main discipline. Unfortunately I’ve never trained in this discipline in the preparation seasons before, only some Super Giant, but never on World Cup level slopes. Without a budget we can’t afford a speed training camp,” she wrote on her Whatsapp status.

On January 18, National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOC-K) secretary general, Francis Mutuku, disclosed that they had seen great potential in Simader, disbursing Sh8 million in the last three years to assist her in preparations.

However, Mutuku said that Simader required more financial resources to sufficiently train for the specific event and felt she wasn’t well prepared, hence opting to focus on the World Championships and tours this year.

“We discussed several times with NOC-K about the support which they promised to finance, they transferred a small amount which covered the debts. They encouraged me to keep training and wait for the government budget but nothing happened.

“This is a very unfair strategy for me as an athlete and my team who work 100 percent to enable me race at the FIS, Euro cups, World Cups, World Championships and the Olympics and at the end we pay for all the preparations ourselves,” she added.

There were two Olympics and one Paralympics hopefuls on the path to Beijing 2022, Simader, Dennis Moronge (Cross-country skiing) and Daniel Katheku Safari (Para skiing).

Simader was the only one who had met the qualification standard, while the rest depended on wild cards for participation.

“It’s very challenging to manage and keep the balance of being an athlete, and an organiser during competitions when my mind should be focusing on the races," she added.

Although the Winter Olympics doesn’t feature a huge Kenyan presence, the country has participated in four editions in the past, including the 2018 edition in Pyeongchanga, South Korea.

Simader was the only Kenyan representative where she finished 38th in the women's Super-G, but failed to finish in the Women's giant slalom second stage after settling 59th in the first stage.

Katheku has been training through scholarships in South Korea and USA, but due to travel restrictions, he was unable to honor qualification events in the last two years.

Moronge, a resident in Czech Republic, was on the path to Olympics, but restrictions in Europe due to the coronavirus pandemic made him miss out on qualification events to gain enough points for Beijing.

Simader is the only child to her single mother and was introduced to skiing at the age of three by her late Austrian step father, who owned a ski mountain called Hansberry.

The Alpine Skier is fluent in German, French and Kikuyu and visits Kenya at least once every year.