AK heightens plans for rescheduled World Under-20 Championships

With the new dates for the World Under-20 Championships now set, Athletics Kenya (AK) has stepped up plans to prepare athletes for the global event.

The championships which were originally scheduled to be held in July this year were postponed due to coronavirus and will thus take place from August 17-22, 2021 at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani.

The postponement of the event will however lead to some of the athletes being locked out of the event due to age restrictions.

According to World Athletics, athletes aged 16, 17, 18 or 19 years on 31 December, 2021 will be eligible to compete.

AK Youth and Development committee chairman Barnaba Korir said the federation will continue with its holiday camp’s programme to prepare athletes who will be eligible for the championships

“It is unfortunate that some of the athletes who were gearing for the event will miss out due to age restrictions but these things sometimes happen and it is not anybody’s mistake. It is only due to Covid-19 pandemic. However, all is not lost for these athletes since they can compete in other championships that will be coming up like the Olympic Games.

We will continue with our programme to prepare the athletes who we had identified and are still within the criteria of the age,” said Korir.

At the same time Korir said they were confident World Athletics would retain Kenya as the host of the biannual event.

“Initially there were discussions to move the event to 2022 but the Cabinet Secretary and the (AK) president lobbied for it to be held in 2021. We were not afraid of losing it because Kenya is an athletics powerhouse and going by what we had in 2017 it was really a success and I think that is what World Athletics wanted,” said Korir.