Kasarani Stadium is set to hold the National youth deaf athletics championships on Thursday and Friday this week.
According to DAAK, the Deaf Athletics Association of Kenya, the event will be used to select the main team that will represent Kenya at the 1st summer deaflympic youth games that will be held in Armenia in June 2019. The event is aimed at giving deaf athletes the same opportunities for career growth as everyone else.
According to the secretary general of DAAK Bernard Banja, necessary measures have been put in place to ensure the event is a success and that they expect to select a strong team of 25 young and talented members who will help in positioning the country as the best in the world.
The championship which has Beryl Atieno Wamira who holds the women’s world youth record in the 100m and 200m events as a participant will feature both track and field activities. These activities include high jump, Pole Vault, Long and Triple Jump, Short put, hammer, javelin and discus. There will also be 4×100 relay, 4×400 relay, 100m 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m and 10000m races.
Kenya’s performance has been tremendous in previous competitions where it emerged the top with 17 medals in 2013 in the whole of Africa and eighth out of 72 countries that took part in the event which took place in Bulgaria.
In 2017, Kenya was the only African team in the Top 10 Deaflympic Games in Turkey with 16 medals breaking 3 world records in the 1500m, 3000m Steeplechase and 10000m men’s race.
