After finishing first in the Sirikwa Classic Cross Country Tour in Eldoret last Saturday, Kenya has announced that it will submit a bid for the World Athletics Cross Country Championships soon.
According to Barnaba Korir, the event director, the country was ready to host the biennial competition for the second time since 2007 because of the high caliber of the organization of the gold-level meet at Lobo Village.
The 2024 event is scheduled for March 30 in Belgrade, Serbia's capital; the 2026 event will take place in Tallahassee, Florida, in the United States.
“The World Athletics is watching very closely and is eager to see how we organize our events. I have also talked to the person in charge of competition at the World Athletics and he is very happy with us.
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“They are thinking of other opportunities that they can give Kenya since we have a huge number of fans who turn up to watch our events. We have the athletes, organizational skills ,the financial support from the government , we have almost everything and that gives us an opportunity for them to consider us organizing bigger events,” said Korir.
Korir said that Kenya's potential to host major international events has increased due to Athletics Kenya's ability to host elite athletics events.
“Last week we had an event in Botswana which was also of the same level as Sirikwa but due to the fact that they did not organize it to our level, they were relegated to bronze level. So you can imagine that this is only the third year for Sirikwa and we are still going strong.”
Team Kenya was also chosen from the competition to compete in the Africa Cross Country Championship in Tunisia later this month.
Kenya, which lost out on the hosting rights to Tokyo in 2025, intends to submit a second bid for the 2029 World Athletics Championships.
Nairobi was one of four bidders for the 2025 event, and in July 2022, the Japanese capital won the right to host it.
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