National Olympics Committee of Kenya (NOC-K) has rescued the Kenya Canoe team on their way to qualify for the Olympic Games set for Tokyo, Japan.
After failing to travel on Monday, the four canoe players finally jetted out of the country this evening ahead of Barcelona, Spain for Olympic qualifiers.
The three players are Samwel Muturi, Levias karanja and Daniel Chomba and NOC-K through the Ag. Secretary General, Francis Mutuku sped up the negotiations with the relevant authorities including the International Canoe Federation (ICF) that had sponsored the athletes with air tickets.
“The team is now sorted, they will depart for Spain this evening (Tuesday, March 9) via Qatar Airways. They did their COVID-19 test last night and results are out. It was not easy to turn around the situation but we are grateful for the Spanish Government and the International Canoe Federation for understating the situation,” said Mutuku.
The athletes will be participating in the disciplines C1 or Canoe 1 and K1 that is Kayak 1, meaning one person per boat.
Kenya was offered four slots in the competition one man and one lady in each of the two disciplines but there were no ladies in the elite level from the Canoeing Clubs to take up the spots, therefore only men will represent the country.
The three players were selected after the Canoe and Rowing Federation held a national selection event in February. Since then, the team has been training at Sagana in preparation for the qualifiers.