Kenya forced to find alternate training venue for Olympics due to Covid-19

Kenya forced to find alternate Olympic training venue

JOHANNESBURG, June 11 (ANA) – With the Olympics starting next month, African countries are preparing to travel to Tokyo and already the Kenyan team have had to find an alternate training venue due to Covid-19.

The Kenyan team will be forced to do most of its final Olympic preparations at home in Mombasa on the South Eastern coast, instead of Kurume, Japan, as originally planned.

As a result, the  Kenyan National Olympic Committee (NOC-K) is desperately seeking a new venue which will be suitable to house its team for the Olympics from July 23 to August 8.

According to Kenyan publication Daily Nation, NOC-K was concerned with the rapidly increasing Covid-19 active cases in the Kurume region, and there was little time left to come up with another plan.

With the exception of the middle and long distance runners and the swimmers, Kenyan athletes had been expected to begin travelling to Kurume on July 7.

NOC-K acting secretary general Francis Mutuku said changing venue at this late stage would be complicated.

“It entailed full sponsorship for their stay, including accommodation, local travel in Japan, training venues and meals for the entire delegation,” Mutuku told Daily Nation.

“We are making alternative arrangements for the team to prepare adequately, and in consideration of the period-of-stay guidelines from the organisers.

”We shall have to be on top in terms of managing our athletes’ exposure.”

Mtuku added that NOC-K would soon begin work on a detailed schedule, which would cause the smallest disruption to the training calendars of its athletes. – African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Michael Sherman