Kenyan athletic coach Stephen Nwaniki: "the World is catching up with us in distance races"

Abuja — Having dominated the middle and long distance races for many years and won countless laurels in international athletic competitions, Kenya is now facing very stiff challenges from other countries that hitherto used not to do well in such races.

Disclosing this at the Abuja National Stadium, a Kenyan athletic coach, Stephen Nwaniki, who was one of the coaches that led a Kenyan team to the Abuja Grand Prix, said immediately after the Beijing Olympics, Athletics Federation of Kenya discovered that their dominance in middle and long distance races is being challenged by some Western countries like the U.S.A.

"Immediately after the Beijing Olympics, we did a research which revealed that the rest of the World is catching up with us in middle and long distance races. So, we have decided to embark on a programme that will enable us to focus our attention on sprint and field events in other to be able to challenge those countries in their own games and win more medals.

"And this is just part of the programme which we have embarked on. At the beginning of this year we went to South Africa with some of our sprint and field even team to participate in the Cape Town Grand Prix. Abuja Grand Prix marks the second time we have taken our sprinters out for a major competition," Nwaniki revealed.

Asked if the athletes have been responding to training, Nwaniki said he is very much impressed with the progress they have recorded within a very short time they introduced them to sprint and field events.

He went further to say that the programme is a long time one which will is geared toward qualifying the athletes for the London Olympics slated for 2012, saying: "Our target is to have sprinters at the World Championship, African Athletics Championship to be held in our country (Kenya), the Commonwealth games in India and ultimately the London games in 2012."

"We are trying to prepare our young sprinters in sprint and field events so that we will be having a full team in 4X100m, 4x400m and field events. We brought our relay team to Nigeria so that they can get qualifications for the World Championship to be held in Berlin, Germany," the East African coach stated.

In an interview with a Kenyan sprinter, Kipkemoi Soi, who lost out in the 100m heat said there are many of them now trying to make names in sprint, saying gone are the day when a country used to concentrate on a race or two.