More than 128 countries confirm entry for World Athletics U20 in Nairobi

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 29 – More than 128 countries have committed to compete in the World Athletics Under-20 Championships to take place in Nairobi from August 17-22, Local Organizing Committee (LOC) boss Myke Rabar confirmed.   

Speaking on Tuesday at Athletics Kenya headquarters at Riadha House, Rabar was confident that more countries will confirm participation as the dates of the global junior athletics competition nears closer.

The CEO, assured safety to all athletes coming from different walks of life to compete in the event, saying that all the necessary COVID-19 measures as guided by the World Athletics and Ministry of Health have been put in place and will be followed to the letter.   

“In terms of the number of teams that have so far confirmed, we have more than 128 teams who have committed to come to the country, it’s a very encouraging number seeing that we are in an environment where there is this challenge of COVID-19, but athletes are keen to come on board to have chance in winning medals and breaking records and we foresee more coming in,” Rabar said.

He added, “Conversation with World Athletics, teams from Olympics and our local medical teams, it was agreed that its safer to have athletes in small bubble than in one large bubble reason being that if by any chance there is a breakout of COVID-19 within any particular individual, it’s easy to track them down in a particular bubble.”

-Kenyan trials-

The Kenyan trials for the event will be held over three days starting this Thursday, July 1 to Saturday, July 3 at the Moi International Sports Center Kasarani where 494 athletes across the country will battle it out for a place to represent the country.

Athletics Kenya’s Barnaba Korir, who is also in the LOC, announced that the criteria on selecting the team will be based on a 1-2 finish for an automatic ticket in every discipline while the third representative will be selected by a panel of technical committee.

“The event taking place from Thursday is for the selection of the Kenyan team, you know Kenya is an Athletics power house, we won the World U20 in Tampere, Finland and we expect to defend the title especially on home ground and therefore we would like to say that as AK we are ready to cooperate and we need support from the LOC to ensure we select a strong team,” Korir underscored.

He added, “the reason why we have a huge number coming for trials is because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We had already selected a team last year but because the event was postponed, we had to start afresh and give all the regions a chance to showcase their strengths.”

However, Korir admitted that the challenge of fighting age cheating is a recurring incidence but he assured that there is a team set up to scrutinize all the required document to ensure that only deserving athletes who are of the age below 20 years compete.

“We have had some issues before concerning age cheating, we have put up structures to see that athletes who are coming to compete are of right age and legit. All athletes will be required bring in their birth certificates and Identity Cards, we will not leave it at that but further investigate. We are going to be very strict,” Korir said.

During the last edition held in Tampere, Finland in 2018, Kenya ruled the world after bagging a total of 11 medals, 6 Gold, 4 Silver and 1 Bronze and in the all-time medal table, Kenya is ranked 2nd with 247 medals (108 Gold, 77 Silver and 62 Bronze)