It is all systems go for the World Under 20 trials as 494 junior athletes gather at Moi Stadium, Kasarani to battle for a ticket to the global showpiece on August 17-22 at the same venue.
The three-day event — from Thursday to Saturday — will be a dry run for the World Under 20 Championships and will be organised in strict accordance with international standards and Covid-19 protocols.
"All the athletes and their officials will undergo regular Covid tests beginning from tomorrow when they arrive at the hotel and throughout the duration of the competition. As Athletics Kenya, we shall provide technical officials, implements and timing equipment for field events but the people who will run the show are the LOC. They will do a postmortem to see how ready they are," Athletics Kenya director for Youth and Development Barnaba Korir said.
Korir reiterated AK's commitment to defending Kenya's title won at the last edition in Tampere, Finland and said they are targeting a formidable team of 40 athletes who will enter bubble camps immediately after the trials.
“ We shall pick the top two participants who meet qualifying standards in each event. However, as hosts, we are allowed to field one athlete in events where we have not met qualifying standards. We also decided to invite athletes who failed to take part in the national and regional pre-trials that is why we are doing the trials for three days,” Korir said.
At the same time, Mike Rabar, chair of the local organising committee for the World Under-20 event, said they had acquired valuable lessons during the national trials for the Tokyo Olympics and will apply the same at this weekend's trials.
"One of the challenges we noticed during the Olympics trials was the accreditation. There were cases where badge holders would access areas they were not supposed to. The other lesson we learnt is the need for a bigger mixed zone to avoid congestion when members of the press are conducting interviews with the athletes. From a protocol perspective, we realised they were a large number of people in certain areas than was permitted," Rabar said.
He added that the collaboration between the LOC and AK will continue beyond the trials and will be a benchmark for event organising in the country in the future.
"Covid is here with us for a while and this calls for us to adopt a new culture in as far as holding events is concerned. For the next 2-3 years, we will be working in this new dispensation in not only athletics but other disciplines. We have had a lot of interactions with World Athletics and we will create some sort of handbook to guide on how to organise and hold events across the sports fraternity."
