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Kenya eyes on dominating Nairobi, London global athletics Championships

Xinhua, January 3, 2017 Adjust font size:

Hosting the 2017 World Youth Championships in Nairobi makes it the most important event in the calendar of Kenyans, though the athletes would still treasure winning gold at the London World Championships.

However, the season will have no room for rest as athletes jump to the busy end starting with a series of cross country meetings in Europe and Africa that will culminate to the World Cross Country in Kampala on March 26.

"We must plan well," said head coach Julius Kirwa from Eldoret. "The season has some of the most important events in an athlete' s calendar. The London World championships is the biggest, but to host an event at home bringing in over 1,000 international athletes is as equally important."

Kenya is planning to spend over 200 million U.S. dollars to host the crucial IAAF World Under-18 Championships (known as World Youth Chamnpionships) in July in Nairobi. It will be the last event as it will be scrapped off starting 2018.

The championships will be very important to the country which will be the second major event to be staged in Kenya after the 2007 IAAF World Cross Country held in Mombasa.

Already Britain has withdrawn its athletes from taking part in Kenya opting instead to focus on the Commonwealth Youth Games in Nassau, Bahamas almost the same time the Nairobi event will be happening.

However, Kenya has pledged to select two teams for the two events. Athletics Kenya President Jack Tuwei said Kenya will compete in both competitions.

"We have a big pool of athletes to draw from and they will get their chance. We will have two teams and I regret the decision by Britain to skip the World Youth Championships in Nairobi," he said.

The real athletics action will start in March for the IAAF World cross country championships set for Kampala in Uganda.

Kenya claimed individual titles in the senior categories through world half marathon champion Geoffrey Kamworor and Agnes Tirop when the event was last held in Guiyang, China in 2015 while Ethiopia won the junior cadre. Endit