Paralympics: Ogada, Dennis leave with heads held high
Kennedy Ogada (centre) and his pilot Oscar Dennis (third right) pose for a group photo with Dennis’ family members at the finish line after their 128km road race B1 at the Paris Paralympics on September 6, 2024.
What you need to know:
- Games end Sunday at French capital city with closing ceremony after two weeks of action.
- Duo were the only African cyclists competing in Paris and first Kenyans in history to race in Paralympics cycling.
In Paris
Kenyan paracyclist, Kennedy Ogada and his pilot Oscar Dennis, have big dreams after their historic participation at the 2024 Paralympic Games that end today with the closing ceremony at Stade de France in Paris.
Ogada, 52 and Dennis, 29, turn their focus to the 2026 Commonwealth Games and 2028 Los Angeles Paralympic Games among other cycling competition.
The duo leave the Paris Games with their heads high despite failing to finish their Road Race B1 (tandem bike) on Friday at Clichy Sous-Bois.
The pair, who had finished 11th at the Time Trial on Wednesday, bowed out of the race after six laps due to exhaustion after they had stopped on several occasions to fix the bike.
They had covered 85.2km of the scheduled 128km competition in two hours, 33 minutes and 02 seconds.
Ogada, who is visually impaired, and Dennis ended up being ranked 10th, and were the only competitors from Africa in the category.
Tristan Bangma from the Netherlands was crowned new champion dethroning fellow countryman Vincent Schure off the Paralympics title, conquering the tough course in 2:55:10.
Schure, scooped silver medal two seconds off the pace as homeboy Alexandre Lloveras took bronze in 2:55:18.
“The results could have been different if we had synchronised well with Dennis,” said Ogada. He praised the former Kenya Sevens star, who stepped in a week ago to replace his usual pilot Benson Mwaniki, out injured.
“That was a great effort from Dennis and I thank him for helping me make history here. We only had a week of training together but we managed to finish the time trial and did six laps in the road event,” said Ogada.
“We leave Paris proud of writing history for our country and Africa.”
Ogada was the only African to qualify for the Paris Paralympics in both time trial and individual road race in B1.
Ogada, who is the Africa B1 champion, said he is inspired to keep on working hard as he eyes the 2028 LA Games.
“I am not yet done until the almighty God says so. I want the world to look at me pretty well and know that age is just a number,” said Ogada.
“I will compete until there will be another African, who will beat me in the category.”
Ogada said that Africa was a sleeping giant in Paracycling but lacked the infrastructure to develop talent.
Dennis, who was cheered by her mother Samantha, sister Sienna and cousins Sofi and Rob on the sideline, said he was glad to have assisted Ogada make history.
"It's quite incredible how Ogada is performing at a high level at his age. He will definitely make it to 2028 LA with good training," said Dennis.
The former Kenya Sevens player said he will go back to his Stellenbosch Club base in South Africa to continue training as he waits to be graded in October in Portugal in paracycling.
“I will always be ready to fly the Kenyan flag anywhere when called upon,” said Dennis, who promising rugby career was ended following a road accident in Nairobi in November 2020 that severely injured his right leg.
