SportsKenya: SportFive in Kenya

Monday, 30 March 2009

SportFive in Kenya

Logo courtesy of SportFive

On Saturday, some observant fans would have noticed that the Coca-Cola Stadium was heavily branded with some interesting boards almost like what we see in other fixtures in developed nations. A good thing.
We also heard the TV rights had been acquired by KBC ( and they better get some better equipment...what is this business of images like we're in the 1980s?). Look no further , SportFive is in town !
According to media reports, the SportFive Africa division-one Damien Delvaque -who are the official marketing company for CAF ( African Football Confederation), were the people behind the 'magic'. They have the rights for all CAF competitions, including the Africa Cup of Nations, Africa Champions League and women & youth tournaments.
I have been singing ( to the birds it seems ) but at least now it makes sense albeit to a foreign company. That's why they could afford to have their way and force the Pepsi-Cola and Nasuba adverts on us even when 3/4 of the nation doesn't even remember of any of Pepsi's products or used Nasuba for money transfer...
Let's hope they manage to convince some local companies or continental companies with a local franchise to place their adverts next time. That way we'll cheer on our team as we enjoy their products or services...good job though, we can learn immensely and with the Junior Rugby tournament in April we should know what to do with our playing grounds...
Notes:
Out of curiousity, who negotiated the deal on behalf of FKL? These guys may ransom our national team without our knowledge...how did we get into a deal with Adidas for national kits which 'disappeared' even before being worn?

3 comments:

Old Faithful said...: As you may have seen from my blog, Kenyan companies seem asleep to such opportunities. I was at a bar where a Kenya Airways employee (don't know if he holds any clout) swore that they would do anything to get back the rugby jersey from Virgin.. like they had never seen a proposal for that. I hear Mahinda has pledged the same.. interesting times ahead..; 31 March 2009 at 10:16
SportsKenya said...: That's true the Kenyan companies always playing catch up....why do we have to wait for other companies(foreign for that)to come and then we start thinking about the necessary?; 31 March 2009 at 11:05
The kenyan football digest said...: check out the kenyan football digest; 20 April 2009 at 09:05

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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Monday, 30 March 2009

SportFive in Kenya

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