Tokyo Olympics: Isolation diminished Lionesses performance, says Oloo

Kenya women rugby sevens head coach Felix Oloo believes the team would have performed better in the Tokyo Olympics,  but the 14-day mandatory isolation subjected to half of the players upon arrival in Japan spoiled the party.

According to Oloo who is also the Top Fry Nakuru head coach, failure to train together as they observed the Covid-19 protocols in Japan scuttled their settling process.

“I thank my technical bench for handling all the pressure we had. They handled it very well and it looked nice to see the girls playing.  They really gathered themselves and one couldn’t notice half of the team was in isolation,” said Oloo.

With a Covid-19 positive case reported within the plane they boarded to Tokyo, the rules barred them from mingling at least until after the stipulated isolation period.

“Those in isolation were only released on the competition day and they were able to express themselves as well as execute what we had trained on  before, so you can imagine how we could have performed had we trained together for 14 days in Japan,” added Oloo.

Oloo lauded the girls for their improved performance compared to 2016 Rio Olympics.

“The players’ team work also played very well because I’m happy this is the first time that more than two players scored tries and playing against the greatest teams in the world, we scored in almost the entire matches.

“That was very positive, the defence played very well. We only need to polish them up and improve on our conditioning,” added Oloo.

Commonly known as Lionesses, the team finished 10th in the Olympics.