Olympic Games 800m champion Emmanuel Korir and former Olympic Games javelin silver medalist Julius Yego have urged their Kenyan fans to avoid negative criticism.
Speaking after winning his first ever Olympic gold at the ongoing Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, Korir said that the pressure from back home, where Kenyans are asking why they are not winning gold.
“Athletics is all about running in a competition and some people criticizing athletes is not good. You might wake up today, you are not feeling well or maybe you may have an injury and so many things and all athletes across the world are expecting a medal. So there are winners and losers and it is unfortunate that some of our people back home they support you when you win and when you lose they frustrate you,” said Korir.
“They start talking negative things, it is not good. Am urging Kenyans to be a little bit careful because they don’t know what happened,” he added.
Yego said that he welcomes the criticism that when they do well, Kenyans are happy but when they not are not doing well they will always be mocked.
“We are always mocked when we perform badly. They mock us but then this is a very high level of competition. As you can see the champions of 2019 and last year, they were beaten in these competition. We need to accept and that is the spirit of the sport. You win today, you lose tomorrow but am happy that people are making criticism and when you criticize, it is an open competition. You can also compete for yourself and see how it will be,” said Yego.