Age cheating has been rife in sports, starting from primary schools, to secondary schools and at the national level as impacts fall on youthful talents.
Starting with primary schools, the Kenya primary Schools Sports Association (KPSSA) introduced age limit for the 2019 championships after losing Milo sponsorship deal and failing to compete at the East Africa Primary Schools Sports Association (EAPSSA) last year.
But age cheating has come to an end following the new directive from national executive Council to allow only under 15 school going pupils to compete this year to secure their sponsorship back and travel to Tanzania for the regional championships.
KPSSA secretary General Mamai Etiang said they have put their house in order to allow under 15 pupils to compete in the games.
“We are will be competing at the regional level this year after missing out on various editions. Something went wrong missing to compete last year for lack of communication in age factor, which denied us to compete at East Africa,” said Etiang.
He said that teams are always composite and they have been selecting best talents not factoring in age, which they only to realize latter that age limit for East Africa were under 15. So this year, they have gone deeper into it, with the resolution of national executive committee that this year they start nurturing the talents of under 15 because under 19 and under 16 are in secondary schools.
“We will be having our national championships in Meru’s Kaaga girls in July/August where they will achieve 99% age compliance. We are embracing it not for bad intention but for the sake of nurturing talents. We are also doing it for the sake of secondary schools. These children are of the same father and because of free primary and secondary school education we have age differences but we are not denying the older ones an opportunity to play but we are denying them an opportunity for competitions, competing with the young ones,” he added.
He cited out that a 12 year old can’t play with 23 year old because their bones are still forming, with little impact causes injuries to the disadvantaged young ones hence killing their talent at the tender age.
“We had sponsors but we lost it because of the market and had under 14, but with us, we had nothing to offer. As much as we had pupils of such age in our schools, we could not allow them to play because a 14 year old cannot compete with a 19 year old. We lost the sponsorship. Another on was the under 16. The under 16 was meant for primary schools but primary schools we didn’t have that age. They are there in primary yes but at the competition level, but selecting a team we could not find somebody who is under 14 because we allowed everyone to play.,” he said.
Etiang claimed that due to our generosity, they lost the sponsorship and went to secondary school because they had their age limit and in their records were found clearly that they had under 16 but it was meant for us in primary.
“The most fundamental and core issue of primary school sports is not competition as such but nurturing talents. We don’t want to lose that talent at the youthful age,” concluded Etiang.