Coach Kirwa: Kenya must change tack or lose dominance
Kenya's athletics coach Julius Kirwa (right) and 5,000 metres runner Jacob Krop at the Nyayo Stadium on July 6, 2023 on the eve of the Kenyan trials for the 2023 Budapest World Athletics Championships.
What you need to know:
- Kirwa, a retired Kenya Defence Forces soldier, believes that Kenya must change tack as other nations continue to threaten the country’s dominance in distance running.
Coach Julius Kirwa has been handling national team athletes since 2000. He’s among Kenya’s unsung heroes.
Kirwa, a retired Kenya Defence Forces soldier, believes that Kenya must change tack as other nations continue to threaten the country’s dominance in distance running.
“We don’t know who will be selected in the national team and as we prepare for the global event, we have a lot of work to do in terms of technical running because everybody wants to beat us,” he told Nation Sport.
“Questions arising on why is Kenya performing dismally in long distance races is something that is now irritating me and it has now reached a time where we have to change our training because it’s not business as usual,” said Kirwa.
He adds that even after next month’s World Championships in Budapest, the 2024 Paris Olympic Games are round the corner, stressing the need to start early preparations.
“We have a problem in 10,000, 5,000, 3,000 metres steeplechase and even 1,500m and we have to resist, and that can only be done with better planning, an idea the federation has bought and in the near future we shall be able to salvage our name in the sport,” added Kirwa.
He also touched on the need for probable athletes to be selected and sent into the camp early before the trials are held so that there is concentration in one area unlike when the athletes come from different areas with different qualifications.
“In 2008 during the Olympic Games, we went to the camp early and the result was a good performance where Kenya was in second position with 16 medals (6 gold, 4 silver, 6 bronze). Training as a team will see even weak athletes work hard to make sure they are in the group that is doing well and that is how a strong team can be selected in the end,” he said.
Kirwa said that athletes are human beings and it takes time to understand them and work together because they all come from different backgrounds.
“Those who will be selected in the national team, we have to sit down with them and discuss and understand one another. Remember they are also adults but coming to a common ground needs good understanding and humility and that is what has helped me handle the team all those years,” said Kirwa, a former Kenya Defence Forces soldier who retired in 2019.
When an athlete is competing, Kirwa said that the coaches have lots of tension as if they are the ones competing because they don’t know how the race will unfold.
“When an athlete is competing, the whole country is watching the head coach and the other team officials and in the process we are always tensed as if we are the ones running but in the end if the results are good we celebrate and if it is the opposite, then we go back to the drawing board,” he said.
He singles out the dismal performance during the 2012 Olympic Games where Kenya bagged two gold medals, four silver and seven bronze medals which he said that he came back home sad.
