Ferdinand Omanyala and Faith Kipyegon during a previous edition of the SOYA awards/FILE
The Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) will be the main attraction tomorrow night as the 21st edition of the Sportsperson of the Year Awards recognises the best in Kenyan sports over the past year.
The who is who of Kenya’s world beaters have been grouped into 11 categories with Soya judges panel Chris Mbaisi revealing how difficult it was picking the nominees.
The team burnt the midnight oil scrutinising every performance to ensure the most deserving athletes, teams and athletes’ support personnel take home the honours.
“2024 was an extraordinary year for Kenyan sports, from the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games to the Junior Starlets qualifying for the Under-17 World Cup,” Mbaisi said.
This year’s theme, “Celebrating Women’s Excellence in Sports,” pays tribute to the outstanding performances by Kenyan women athletes.
This is in line with Soya founder Paul Tergat’s commitment to take the awards to new frontiers, including training athletes in financial literacy, mental wellness and corporate social responsibility.
The categories include Sportswoman and Sportsman of the Year, Sportswoman and Sportsman with Disability, Coach of the Year, Women’s and Men’s Sports Team of the Year, Schools Girls’ and Boys’ Teams of the Year, Schools’ Coach of the Year and the prestigious Hall of Fame induction.
Front-runners for the overall title are double Olympic champion Beatrice Chebet, three-time Olympic 1,500m champion Faith Kipyegon and women’s marathon record holder Ruth Chepng’etich.
Chebet rewrote history books after clocking 28:54.14 in the 10,000m, smashing Letesenbet Gidey’s previous mark of 29:01.03, becoming the first woman to run under 29 minutes.
She followed it up with a golden double in Paris, clinching both the 5,000m and 10,000m Olympic titles — a feat only two other women in history have achieved.
Kipyegon, meanwhile, reset her own 1,500m world record with a blistering 3:49.04 at the FBK Games in Hengelo before cruising to a third straight Olympic gold in Paris, shattering her Olympic record in the process with 3:51.29.
She capped off her season with a record fifth Diamond League title in the 1,500m. Chepng’etich clocked 2:09:56 at the Chicago Marathon to lower the previous women’s mark of 2:11:53 held by Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa.
Her mark in Chicago made her the first woman in history to dip under the 2:10 and 2:11 barriers. Olympic 800m champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi headlines the men’s division after extending Kenya’s dominance in the two-lap race by securing a fifth consecutive Olympic crown.
He currently holds the second-fastest time in history over the distance (1:41.11) behind David Rudisha’s world record of 1:40.91.
His main competitor will be Boniface Mugunde, who brought home Kenya’s first African boxing title since 2017 after a commanding performance in the light middleweight division.
Long jump silver medallist Samson Ojuka — Kenya’s lone medallist at the Paris Paralympics — and World Ability Youth Games double gold medallist Michelle Chepng’etich headline the nominees for Sportsman and Sportswoman with Disability, respectively.
