Wario backs down on axing swimmers from Olympics

Sports Cabinet Secretary Dr. Hassan Wario on Friday ruled out the possibility of withdrawing the country’s swimmers from the Rio 2016 Olympics Games following a selection scandal that has exposed the rot in the Kenya Swimming Federation (KSF).

Last week, the minister had threatened to pull out the swimmers if KSF did not write to world governing Fina requesting to include Rebecca Kamau and Issa Mohammed in the team instead of Hamdan Bayusuf and Talisa Loe who qualified the universality criteria that is open to those who did not bag A-Standard qualifying.

Speaking to Citizen Digital, after Team Kenya for Rio was officially handed the national flag by President Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday afternoon; Wario declared the team would travel as scheduled.

He blamed the National Olympics Committee of Kenya (Nock) for failing to play their role in resolving the controversial axing of Issa and Rebecca from the team that drew a huge public backlash with relatives of the swimmers pondering taking legal action against KSF.

“I have not received any feedback from Nock because we gave them clear instructions to write back to Fina citing all the irregularities stated by KSF and as far I’m concerned the team will be in Rio,” the Minister emphasised.

The scandal came to light a fortnight ago when Rebecca’s father published a heart rendering post on his Facebook account detailing the anguish his daughter, 16, who is based in the UK underwent through after being excluded from the team despite gaining a B-qualifying time.

KSF through its chairman, Ben Ekumbo, sought to clarify the omissions were in line with Fina rules of qualification before the matter was brought to the world body’s attention and on Monday, they wrote back to Nock standing by the decision to include Bayusuf and Loe in the team.

Ekumbo pointed out that Rebecca who caused an online storm with even a petition signed to include her in the Games did not participate at the World Swimming Championships in Kazan last year, a pre-requisite of being considered for the universality consideration.

That left Wario as the last port of call for the aggrieved parties who confronted Ekubo during a Rio 2016 Steering Committee meeting at the ministry’s headquarters in Nairobi a week ago where the Cabinet Secretary directed KSF to write to Fina to include the dropped swimmers.

Rebecca’s father, Kiruri is consulting his legal team with a view of institution charges against KSF to weed out what he calls corruption at the national governing body that was denying deserving swimmers the chance of representing their nation.

He also downplayed the notion his quest for justice is driven by his daughter missing out on the Olympics.

“The two (selected swimmers) came in the last five in Kazan in what they swam, in a field of over 60. Its a travesty. Especially when one knows how it was done. Personally I would be okay if it say, Emily Muteti and Issa were picked on the grounds they went to Kazan, because they are the better swimmers and more Fina points,” he told Citizen Digital.