SportsKenya: Our Game : Basketball

Wednesday, 12 November 2008

Our Game : Basketball

Mr. Chairman,

This is a short letter to you for you and your esteemed office at the Federation. First I'd congratulate you on being elected to the highest office in the land relating to basketball. Your efforts from the academia seemed worth the while and worked like a charm on our delegates.

Secondly, I'll applaud you on your pronouncements that you will see the Kenyan teams(men and ladies) at the 2012 Olympic Games to be held in London. That's a mean achievement and the sheer pleasure from representing Kenya and Africa would be leaps and bounds bigger than anything that has happened to Kenyan basketball.

Talking of happening, what has happened this year since you took office ? Hmmm....there has been a quiet season with not much incidents. Why even the Play-offs have been quite a blip in the basketball calendar ? There was team though that was suspended for non-payment of participation fees this late into the season. I guess Mr. Secretary or is it Fixtures Secretary / Treasurer have been too busy to look into their books. Or maybe the outgoing office was not as co-operative. I understand they didn't even have records for the last 5 years in office.

Mr. Chairman, I'm informed that you've banned any alcoholic drinks,drugs and made basketball tournaments non-smoking zones. I salute you !

Lastly just as a matter of concern, do we know the average attendance of a basketball game in Kenya in the past season ? The Play-offs have been looking empty , I guess the rains have beat you hard even to make us stay away.

Oh, I also forgot, you were to launch a Vision or Masterplan for the game for your term in office. I'm still waiting for that in my mail,but you know with PostOffice Corporation of Kenya, they at times take their time loading our boxes.

As the boys go for their long holidays, I believe you can extend your stay in the City in the Sun to finish up on this business. Having won Principal of the year award, you can translate some of that magic into the people's game. And since Obama's happened on the scene, I guess we might have a gymnasium of international proportions in Kisumu before 2012.

Your hoopless player,

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Profile of a Kenyan Sports Personality

This is a look at a Kenyan personality who may have influenced and continues to affect sports in Kenya and inspires all and sundry in sports. It is our hope that you shall reflect on this, take a moment to appreciate the sacrifices and efforts these heroes made. We do take a bow and wave our hats as we cheer true Kenyan patriots in sport!

This one takes a different twist. Having seen individuals grace this column, we have sought to recognize a team of individuals who did some exemplary work and set what has been an unbeatable national and indeed continental effort.

Kenya has never been a major power in shorter races 400m downwards. Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, this was a different script especially with the more exciting relay races. It is in 1968 when Kenya’s dominance came into play and with it a retinue of athletes who would become legends of their era.

The 4x400m races are usually the climax in the athletics calendar of events and in Mexico ’68, Kenya’s team including Charles Asati, Naftali Bon, Munyoro Nyamau and Daniel Rudisha ( the latter being the father to David Rudisha - current World and African champion in 800m) had other ideas coming 2^nd to USA.

In 1972, the 4 x 400m team was tweaked a bit and the final race was run by Charles Asati, Munyoro Nyamau, Robert Ouko and Julius Sang blazing the track to come up with the only other Gold medal from the Munich Games. But for this unprecedented move and none that has been done before by any other African nation, we salute our compatriots making them the Kenyan sprint legends!

Know your Sport

Swimming

Recently at some social setting we were engaged in a club quiz and one of the questions was about swimming. This sought to know which stroke was not among the competitive ones till 1956. One of our team-mates (we were 6 said that it was back-stroke while I argued it was butterfly, and the majority thought the former ….guess we should have stuck with my answer though!)

All the same, this sport has become one of the most competitive sports in any major sporting extravaganza in the form of the All-Africa Games, Commonwealth or indeed the Olympic Games. Kenya has lately featured in this very involving and energy-sapping sport. Thanks to the exploits of the Dunford brothers who have shone the spotlight on the country away from traditional sports in athletics, football, boxing and rugby. But what do you understand from the sport? Here’s a brief of it from different sources;

According to Wikipedia, swimming is based on the human act of swimming, that is, locomotion in water by self propulsion, with the goal of completing a given distance in the shortest amount of time. Swimming is distinguished from other aquatic sports (such as diving, synchronized swimming, and water polo) that involve swimming but the goal is neither speed nor endurance.

Competitive swimming consists of four strokes: butterfly, breaststroke, freestyle (or front crawl), and backstroke. When all four strokes are done during a race, it is called medley swimming (otherwise known as the individual medley, or I.M.). It is governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation Amateur (FINA).

The goal of competitive swimming is usually to have the fastest time to complete a given distance. Competitive swimming became popular in the nineteenth century. Swimming is an event at the Summer Olympic Games, where male and female athletes compete in 13 of the recognized events each. Olympic events are held in a 50 meter pool (long course).

There are 36 officially recognized individual swimming events – 18 male events and 18 female events; however the International Olympic Committee only recognizes 34 of them – 17 male and 17 female. Most swimming sport events are held in special competition swimming pools, which are either long course pools such as those used in the Olympic Games (50 m) or short course pools such as those used in the FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m) (25 yards or 25 m). Competition pools have starting blocks from which the competitor can dive in, and possibly also touch-sensitive pads to electronically record the swimming time of each competitor.

In most competitions, the competitors are required to wear swimwear/swimsuits to adequately cover their bodies for the dip. However some suits have created controversies which have seen FINA coming up with standards to adhere to ensure competitors do not have undue advantage over each other.

The sport can also be pursued for personal fitness and is considered by fitness enthusiasts as one of the few that does an all-round job body of keeping the body in shape. It also requires healthy diets and rehydration (yes even if your body’s dipped in water)! Famous names in the sport include Mark Spitz – 7-gold medals winner 1972 Olympics and Michael Phelps – 8 gold medals - Beijing 2008.
For more info, check www.fina.org

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Wednesday, 12 November 2008

Our Game : Basketball

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