A lot on the plate for Nock in 2020
National Olympic Committee of Kenya (Nock) is in for a busy first quarter of the year with more athletes and teams seeking to qualify for the summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.
The national women’s volleyball team will participate in the Africa Olympic qualifiers from January 5 to 9 in Cameroon where they will battle for the sole slot reserved for the continent with Cameroon, Egypt, Nigeria and Botswana.
Their beach volleyball counterparts have been training in Mombasa ahead of the Zonal qualifiers scheduled for January 9 to 12 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The team will be looking to join their men’s counterparts for the African qualifiers to be held in Senegal in March.
Men’s handball team, who are currently in training, will be in Egypt from January 15-25 for the Africa Olympic qualifiers. They will be seeking to write history as no Kenyan handball team has qualified for the Olympics before.
February will be a busy month with karate, tae kwon-do and wrestling having their Africa qualifiers in Morocco.
The cycling team will have their continental championships in Ethiopia also in February while table tennis and canoe slalom will have their qualifying events in Tunisia and France respectively.
Africa qualifiers for boxing will be held in Senegal in March and another window for qualification will be staged in France for world additional slots.
Currently, Athletics Kenya (AK) has 47 athletes who have met the Olympics qualifying times while men and women’s rugby sevens teams and two swimmers have already secured their ticket to Tokyo.
Nock through it’s Acting Secretary General Francis Mutuku, says the success has been a product of focus, discipline and hard work from the individual athletes.
“As we bid 2019 goodbye, we look forward to a busy calendar in the first half of 2020 where various disciplines will continue with their qualification campaigns,” says Mutuku.
He added: “January to March are very critical in the paths of the remaining sports disciplines. We are highly hopeful that we shall get more athletes qualifying and we wish them a very successful bid.”
“The Management Committee meetings continue in January and will be held every month until March and twice a month thereafter. The Central Management team will be meeting twice a month all through to the Olympics,” he noted.
