Kenya won 11 medals including 4 gold, 2 silver and 5 bronze to finish the 2024 Olympics in 17th position overall. Kenyans were satisfied as yet again Kenya finished atop the Africa medal table. Indeed at the end of the 2024 Olympics, Kenya leads all of Africa in the All time medal table with 113 medals including 35 gold.
This success is largely due to the performance of Kenya’s distance runners. Indeed as the years have gone by, Kenya has become more and more dependent on distance runners. The other events have been left for dead.
Sprints and Field Events
Kenya has recorded some excellent results in sprint events in the past. Most notable, Kenya won the gold medal in the 4 X 400m event at the 1972 Olympics, after having won silver in 1968. Charles Asati won the bronze medal in the 400m in 1972. The legendary Samson Kitur repeated the feat in 1992 with a late surge. Furthermore, Kenya has always fielded a team in the 4 X 400m event.
Fast forward to the 2024 Olympics and Kenya did not field any relay team. The only Kenya qualifier in the 400m was Zablon Ekwam and he ended up not running. This left Kenya’s sprint hopes on the broad shoulders of Ferdinand Omanyala on whom Kenyans placed unrealistic expectations. He did well to reach the semi-finals
Boxing Disaster
For the first time ever, not a single Kenyan boxer qualified to go to the Olympics.There were two opportunities to qualify including the African qualifiers held in Dakar as well as a Repecharge tournament held in Bangok, Thailand. On both occasions Kenya fell short. Not a single Kenyan pugilist made the cut.
This is a stark contrast to the 1970s and 1980s when Kenya would send a full compliment of 12 boxers. And in those days, Kenyan boxers were not just joyriders. Kenya won multiple medals at the Olympics with a gold medal coming from Robert Wangila, a silver medal from Philip Waruinge as well as bronze medals from Waruinge, Dick Murunga, Ibrahim Bilali and Chris Sande.
Volleyball: Mediocrity as usual
Kenya women’s volleyball team qualified for the Olympics for the fourth time in history. Just as was the case in 2004 and 2021, Kenya did not win a single set , conceding 225 points and scoring 136. Indeed the last time Kenya won a set was 24 years ago in Sydney. It has been 24 years of mediocrity and the people in charge of volleyball are prepared to rinse and repeat again if Kenya qualifies to play in 2028. After 24 years, no officials has tried to figure out what can be done to end the cycle of mediocre results.
Men’s Rugby Sevens
Kenya has done well in the Sevens world cup, reaching the semi-finals twice (2009 and 2013). But when it comes to the Olympics, Shujaa always perform poorly. The 2024 Olympics were no different as Kenya lost all their matches on the first day. They recovered to win two matches on the second day after they were out of contention.
Their below par performance of 2024 can be chalked up the fact that Kenya players did not have experience playing against top tier teams as Kenya had been relegated from the World Sevens series in 2023.
Women’s Rugby Sevens
The Kenya women’s team, popularly known as Lioness came close to qualifying for the Olympics. They reached the final game before losing to China.
Prior to the qualifying tournament, there were reports that the Lioness players had not been paid their allowances for months. Rugby is a very difficult sport to play when not motivated. It showed in the final qualifier against China. Kenya were asleep on defence, allowing the Chinese to run casually past the try-line four times. The 3rd try was especially shocking: A chinese player made a breakaway, she was tackled by the Kenya sweeper. However the remaining Kenya defenders were seen walking back instead of running back to support their sweeper, resulting in an easy try for China who also played a brand of rugby that was far more structured , solid defensively and better organized than Kenya who seemed more reliant on individual displays and little organization.
Hockey Absent since 1988
Both the men and women’s hockey teams failed to qualify with the women finishing in 3rd place while the men finished in 6th place in the qualifiers held in South Africa .
Its a massive fall from grace for Kenya. A team that had previously qualified for the Olympics 7 times. A team that was ranked among the top 5 in the world during the 1970s .
Summary
Kenya sports officials have been patting themselves in the back, basking in the glory of distance runners like Faith Kipyegon. In reality however if distance running were to be taken out of the equation , we would be saying that Kenya has not won an Olympic medal since 1988. Its time for sports officials to get a grasp of why Kenya has been performing poorly for decades. In particular its worth noting that other countries start preparations up to 8 years in advance. As we speak, other countries have already started to identify youth aged 13 to 16 years old who will represent them at the 2032 Olympics. Such long term planning has always been non-existent in Kenya.
