Francis Mutuku:International youth exposure key in all sporting disciplines

The Secretary General of the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOCK), Francis Mutuku, has reiterated his commitment to invest significant resources in the youth competitions in order to heavily influence positive performances at the senior level.

He pointed out that the continuity of talent and the transition to the senior team had been a major challenge and therefore closer monitoring was needed to ensure successful youth development in various sports disciplines.

“International presence in the youth field is crucial in all sports disciplines. It is therefore not surprising that we still depend on a few sports to achieve excellence at international level. As long as our youth development is faltering, our future will always be bleak. We have to keep the depth in sport.

This year we have the opportunity to rewrite the narrative. We have a series of international multisport youth events,” Mutuku wrote.

Earlier this year, Kibra Member of Parliament and former Chairman of the Kenya Secondary School Sports Association (KSSSA) Peter Orero appealed to local associations to work with schools to attract talent to senior national teams.

“I won’t shy away from talking about and even getting involved in school plays. In Parliament we will always help when needed to ensure the continuity of school games because we know that KSSSA is the biggest platform to bring out talent in the country.

“School games are the backbone of every country in terms of sports growth and if a lot of attention is not paid to the sector, a country can let its sports systems collapse and hence we must keep promoting extracurricular activities,” noted Mwalimu Orero, like him affectionately called

His feelings were echoed by Mutuku in one of his weekly publications

“The long-term goal is to develop young people by complementing what the associations are doing. It will also ensure that federations run youth development programs to provide strong teams for future Commonwealth and Olympic Games.

“Just like education, which ranges from elementary school to secondary school to specialized courses, the development of athletes should follow the same path,” he stressed

Kenya is currently preparing for various youth championships, including the 2023 Commonwealth Youth Games, which are scheduled to be held in Trinidad and Tobago from August 4-11

Athletes between the ages of 14 and 18 take part in the seven-day championship.

They will look to build on their previous performances when they topped the medal table with 16 medals (eight gold, one silver and seven bronze) when the country hosted the belated 2020 U20 World Championships in Athletics in 2021