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Today, my heart bleeds for the youth and junior athletes in the wake of the coronavirus that has brought everything to a standstill.
No one is asking about their fate yet they are the most vulnerable lot in the sports circles. Today, I choose to speak on their behalf. I am talking about the youth athletes and the juniors who were preparing for the World Under-20 Championships.
As they say, an idle mind is a devil’s workshop and I am concerned. Being the chairman of the Youth Committee at Athletics Kenya (AK), this matter concerns me a lot.
I know some of you will ask what we have done for them as AK but believe you me, we can only do so much. One of my daily chores is to reach out to them and find out how they are doing but I guess that is not enough.
The junior athletes, for example, were starting to get into the mix of professionalism and truth be said, they haven’t made much financially. I fear the current lull could discourage them and drive them into social vices.
Currently, they are not training and if they have cleared school, they are idle. The youth athletes are out of school and idle too.
It is for this reason that we have to scratch our heads hard and come up with solutions on how to protect our athletics future. Even when the ministry is talking about helping athletes, they have to consider the younger athletes first because most of their senior counterparts have invested and can sustain themselves for a while.
We cannot start talking about random help for athletes when everyone knows that most senior athletes are OK and can cushion the younger ones if they want. We have to be very objective when asking for help because we can’t classify these people in the same group.
I like calling a spade a spade because facts are out there for everyone to see.
The truth of the matter is that if we lose sight of our upcoming runners during this crisis, we are bound to create a permanent generational gap. It is easy not to see the youths because they hardly talk but silence again can be dangerous.
As stakeholders, we need to come up with ways and means of keeping the youth busy, engaging them on a number of projects. Inspirational talk through social media could also go a long way in giving them hope that the bad times will not last. Teachers should also help in raising the hopes of the voiceless youths.
Having said that, we can only pray that Covid-19 clears soon so that we can have our normal lives back. But before that, I want to advise the athletics fraternity to observe the government’s directives of washing their hands, using sanitizer, staying at home and using their masks.
Trying to be dodgy in one way or another will only contribute towards prolonging the crisis hence delaying your careers.
