Four Kenyan Para Athletes to benefit from Commonwealth  development program

Four Kenya para athletes have been selected to join commonwealth Games Federation program dubbed GAPS-Gather, Apply, Prepare, Sustain , that seeks to increase the participation of para athletes at the commonwealth games.

The initiative, a resultant study of the Tokyo Paralympic Games is expected to shore up  numbers of countries outside the 7 largest Commonwealth Games associations.

The seven largest associations include: Australia, Canada, England, South Africa, Scotland and Wales.

The four selected athletes include: discus thrower Sylvia Atieno,  Shotput’s Nely Sile,sprinter Vincent Mutai and power lifter Hellen Kariuki.

The programme also seeks to build capacity of coaches as well with track and field coaches Michael Omondi  and Caroline Mabel being enlisted as well as power lifting instructor David Waore.

Power lifter Hellen Wawira is set to depart for Birmigham, UK  tomorrow, Saturday for a five day training which will aid her pathway towards the qualification for the club games.

The track and field athletes are set to travel to South Africa for the second time for further preparation after participating in the first camp organized in Johannesburg between March 18^th-24^th.The second camp which will be held at StellenBosch University is scheduled for May 6^th 2022.

The four athletes were nominated by the national Olympic Committee through the Kenya National Paralympic Committee,KNPC.  Knpc was forced to settle on the four athletes from a listof 38 in consideration to the athletes performances and results in recent championships.

The programme seeks to create greater access opportunities for classification and qualification events and identify talent in each regions amongst athletes and coaches.

The 2022 Para Commonwealth Games is scheduled 27^TH July-7^th August in Birmigham,UK