Sloppy booking? Drama as Team Kenya detained, miss world race over flight mix-up
Samuel Gathimba wins men's 10km race walk during third Athletics Kenya Track and Field Meeting at Nyayo Stadium in Nairobi on January 27, 2024.
What you need to know:
- The team ended up being detained at the Ercan International Airport since they didn’t have the transit visa to Cyprus
- World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships went down on Sunday as Kenya failed to field a team after it proved futile to secure another flight to Antalya
Kenya might have squandered a chance to qualify more walkers to the Paris Olympic Games when their flight to Antalya, Turkiye, the venue of the World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships, was wrongly booked.
The team that left on Thursday midnight aboard a Turkish Airlines plane landed in Istanbul, Turkiye after seven hours and 20 minutes.
They then boarded another Turkish Airlines flight to Ercan International Airport, Northern Cyprus where they arrived later Friday morning after another hour and 40 minutes.
It’s from Ercan International Airport where the team was to take another one hour flight to Antalya International Airport but that is when trouble started.
The team ended up being detained at the Ercan International Airport since they didn’t have the transit visa to Cyprus.
The team stayed at Ercan International Airport before leaving on Saturday afternoon to Istanbul where they boarded a Turkish Airlines plane at around 7.30pm, arriving in Nairobi on Sunday 2am.
World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships went down on Sunday as Kenya failed to field a team after it proved futile to secure another flight to Antalya.
The 2022 world bronze medallist Samuel Gathimba, who is also the African Games silver medalist, and African Games champion Emily Ngii had led the team to the world event.
Also in the team was the 2021 world under-20 champion Heristone Wanyonyi, and former Africa under-20 champion Dominic Ndigiti.
Others in the team that had George Kariuki as the coach were Africa Under-20 bronze medallist Stephen Ndangili and Margaret Gati.
Athletics Kenya Nyanza North Region chairman Joseph Ochieng was the team leader deputized by Athletics Kenya Western Region chairman Francis Afundi.
“It’s quite disappointing that we had to go all the way only to be detained in Cyprus where we slept at the airport for two days,” said one of the team members, who sought anonymity.
“The ministry was in charge of the flight arrangement and we don’t know why they rerouted us to Cyprus when it was easy to connect from Istanbul to Antalya,” said the source, adding that Athletics Kenya were preparing a statement over the issue.
