Time to start preparing for 2028 Olympic Games is now
Kenya's national women's volleyball team players before their pool match against Poland at the 2024 Olympic Games.
What you need to know:
- They say the most important shot in sports is ‘the next one’.
- There are 47 months and 1,419 days to the next Olympics.
Friday night was a great day as we celebrated all our Olympians from Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The celebration extended to the whole team behind the athletes, ranging from sponsors to technical support personnel.
Usually, there are always many uncelebrated individuals who play a very critical role in the success of the team.
Perhaps the most notable towards the end of the celebrations was the focus on 2028 Los Angeles (LA) 2028 Olympics. This is the next and most critical programme now.
They say the most important shot in sports is ‘the next one’. Past victories rarely count. Celebrate we must but very quickly we must get on the business of the next assignment.
The best time to prepare for Olympic Games is usually immediately after the end of the current one. It would be great if we broke away from the past practices of loading everything towards the end when it is too late to make the required impact.
We are a predominantly a farming society and therefore the concept of farm preparation, planting, nurturing and harvesting is easily understandable.
The 2028 LA Olympics are four years away. To bring it closer home, there are 47 months and 1,419 days to the next Olympics. By the time some will be reading read this article, the days will be fewer.
Financial investment
Sports Infrastructure is probably the most glaring gap in our sports development at the moment. We talked of boxing not making it to the Olympics. It is very sad that we don’t have a public boxing ring in the country.
A quick check shows that a boxing ring costs less than Sh2m. A very small price. Every County in Kenya can have a boxing ring. We will not event talk of the Stadiums whose focus has been more for other functions than for sports.
We need less of concrete and more of the right playing surfaces for multidisciplinary sports. We are a “powerhouse of steeplechase” without steeplechase training and competition facilities.
Medals won are a reflection of financial investment. The time and resources our Paris 2024 Olympic medalists put in on an individual level is immense.
We are benefitting from that individual investment and sacrifice. Training, travel, competition and team support requires substantial funding. A lot of our athletes can’t travel for competitions to get the requisite ranking points to qualify.
We can have a very strategic approach in identifying the most likely qualifiers and put money behind their preparations now. They can travel to several events and by the third year manage to acquire the necessary qualification. This will help us diversify our sources of medals at the Olympics.
Sports development
A national policy on sports development is long overdue. Sports cannot be everything to everybody. We need to sit back and make a fair assessment of our sports status. Once the assessment is done, we can then define what our goals and objectives as a country will be.
When questions are raised on the performance of Team Kenya while on its second day of competition in athletics then we realize we need a very good understanding of sports at leadership level.
The policy will define and guide us on clear objectives of international events competition, and ensure that the requisite infrastructure, funding and technical facilitation is put in place before we can call for good results which is normally translated as medals.
Currently we have too many silos around sports development. We have primary schools, secondary schools, colleges, universities, academies, clubs, federations and counties all doing some semblance of sports development.
The central focus is the same athlete but approached from multiple areas. If all these parties could align so that there is planned progression through all these sectors the end product would be so much better.
A lot can be said on how we can do better in LA 2028 Olympics. Most important is starting the journey now. We have enough experts and documents written on how best to achieve it. We need as a country to “bell the cat” and do what needs to be done now. A day later will get us back to current situation where we hope and continue hoping for better results.
Paris 2024 was a very good and successful outing. Congratulations to Team Kenya. With more support provided now, LA 2028 can be much better.
Mutuku is Secretary General of NOC-K. [email protected]
