Thousands of Kenyans kids celebrated the Kids Athletics Day across the country and the world.
In North Rift, over 1,300 kids from 22 schools converged to St Agatha Mokwo Secondary to mark the day, participating in various events to celebrate the big day.
The Kids Athletics hosted on May 7th annually, is a day dedicated to celebrating children and young people across the globe participating in athletics and being active.
According to World Athletics, they believe that every child is born to move, play and explore no matter where they are in the world or their individual circumstance, aiming to use the power of athletics to inspire children and young people all over the world to get moving, be more active, develop their skills and confidence and to connect with sport and physical activity for life.
This year’s theme is to celebrate the spirit of Kids’ Athletics and community.
Athletics Kenya Athletes’ representaive Milcah Chemos Cheywa said that the celebration of the event was on top gear, focusing on nurturing and developing young generation to understand athletics.
“We want schools to have such events continuously to develop the talents. We are happy for the young ones, learning about new skills and we thank the World Athletics and Athletics Kenya to have skilled the young ones,” said Chemos.
The federation’s Executive Member Elizabeth Kietany pointed out the need having such talents being nurtured to e great runners in future.
“This event brought together 22 schools with over 1,300 athletes, targeting kids between 4-14 years,” said Kietany adding that as the event was happening in Mokwo, similar one was being held in Makueni county after Mombasa, Thika, Kericho, Baringo and other areas all over the country..
Middle distance coach Henry Lebo was hesitant that they normally have very good young people who end up losing track in future, especially transition.
“We are have big events like hurdles, javelin and other events, we have many talents that needs to be nurtured. we need a program to make a follow up on such kids. But my worry is that we may lose such talents come in future. We really need to tap, nurture such greats talents,” said Lebo.
Well known for producing top steeplechase athletes, coach Boniface Tiren said that they have come from far by having very thrilling events of the magnitude.
“We need such concept to be taken seriously to schools because the bus stops at teachers in various areas since this is a new event that we never had it before. This is a good projection ahead of top events. This is the future of athletics,” said Tiren.