From the Editor ...

After the medal haul by our juniors during the 5th edition of the World Youth Athletics Championships in Ostrava, and the gallant efforts of the national contingent to the just ended 9th All Africa Games in Algeria the focus shifts to the 10 World Athletics Championships in Osaka, Japan.

The juniors surprised everybody not so much by the big haul, but also by the fact that they finished second behind the US, and just above Russia, thwe global powers. They had a total of 11 gold medals: six gold, four silver and one bronze.

The good performance may just be the tonic that the seniors require as they head to the Japanese city of Osaka where the 10th edition of the World Athletics Championships will be held in August.

Our country’s odyssey to North Africa was reinforced by the fact that for the first time, since 1987, Kenya was represented by the largest contingent ever, consisting of 321 athletes from more than 20 disciplines, whose duty was to ensure Kenya reclaims its place among the leading sporting nations in Africa.

However, with their 13 gold medals, 15 silver and 10 bronze fell short of assuaging the initial target of medal haul, although it was a massive improve to the infamy of four years ago.

Probably, nobody exemplifies the country’s hunger for medals then one Jason Dunford, the man who hauled a total of eight medals from all possible swimming competitions. May God Bless this great son of our beloved country.

The massive investment in representation, the accompanying jolly mood during the Algiers Games was, however, sullied by the fact that football, the country’s most popular sport, was conspicuously absent. That Kenyan footballers, either women or men, have missed out on yet another opportunity to showcase their talent in the continent’s biggest sporting bonanza, and whose winner gets the automatic ticket to represent the continent in next year’s Olympic Games in Beijing, is tragic enough and its pain is much more and will never be accounted for no matter how many gold medals the country gets in other sports disciplines.

This does not augur well for the future of the sport, because an opportunity to participate in the Olympics would surely be a precursor of the greater things to come for our players as the continent prepares to host the world’s greatest sporting event – the Fifa World Cup in 2010.

And what a great lesson the country will learn from Dunford. Rather than invest in phantom projects, why not go to the small things that we usually ignore.

What if all schools in Eastlands had swimming pools? Just a thought.

By Ibrahim Oruko,

Editor.