Shujaa, the national rugby sevens team head coach Innocent Simiyu is optimistic that they will perform well at the Olympic Games that kicks off next week in Tokyo, Japan.
Simiyu said they have started having slow training sessions because of the travelling, the humidity and adjusting to the conditions.
“For us the events are usually fixed, is just for us to react to them, so we are quite clear, that’s why we came for an acclimatization camp, so thatwe can adjust to these conditions. For us we like the heat, so it will be not cold, it is just an issue of adjusting to the humidity and the wind. But we are quite happy and ready to go,” said Simiyu.
He said that there is enough time to prepare, focussing on game plan ahead of the opening match against the USA.
Kenya is pooled against the USA, Ireland and South Africa at the Olympic games saying that Ireland is a very good team, even before they went to the core series they made the semi-finals of the world series a couple of times, winning the repecgarge, so they are quiet a good team and they play a very expansive game. It will be interesting to see who comes out of the pool because all the games are quite tough.
“It is a tough pool. At the Olympics all pools are difficult; you don’t expect any easy game. If you look at the last Olympics, japan played some very good rugby, they managed to beat the all blacks and get to the semis, so for us it is a game at a time and it is more important that we hit our standards early and playing our game, showcasing our Kenyan talent and brand of rugby. So, we will be very keen on how we start and how we build on that and hopefully we see who will come out of the pool,” he added.