Athletics Kenya nominated for global award

Raila Odinga  and other leaders at the Nyayo National Stadium during the Kip Keino Classic games. [Emmanuel Wanson, Reuters]

The Athletics Kenya has been nominated for the Member Federation Award by the World Athletics.

This year, the award is a special honour to recognise a member federation that has managed to deliver an uplifting athletics event, development event or other athletics achievement, in spite of the health and safety challenges it faced in 2020.

Kenya was praised for organising and staging the Kip Keino Classic, the first World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting in Africa.

The country’s athletes were also commended for their performances at the World Athletics Half Marathon Championships Gdynia 2020 with women's winner, Peres Jepchirchir, breaking the women-only race world record.

World Athletics president Sebastian Coe acknowledged the difficulties the sport has faced in recent months and lauded the nominated Member Federations for stepping up and showing creativity despite the effects caused by Covid-19.

“We all know the difficulties that sport has faced during the pandemic but many of our Member Federations have risen to that challenge brilliantly and we wanted to acknowledge some of the exceptional work they have done to ensure that our sport continues to thrive in these very testing times,’’ said Coe.

“The commitment and creativity shown by our Member Federations demonstrates exactly why we are the world’s most global sport and I applaud their efforts.”

Each Area Association was asked to nominate two Member Federations. A vote by the World Athletics Executive Board selected the six finalists, one from each Area Association.

The nominees are; Athletics Kenya (Confederation of African Athletics), Athletics New Zealand (Oceania Athletics Association), Nicaraguan Athletics Federation (North American, Central American & Caribbean Athletics Association), Palestine Athletic Federation (Asian Athletics Association), Peruvian Athletics Federation (Confederation of South American Athletics), Polish Athletics Association (European Athletics)

The winner will be announced at the World Athletics Awards 2020 to be held virtually on Saturday, December 5 and streamed live on the World Athletics YouTube channel, its Facebook page and via Twitter.