SportsKenya: 2011 World Athlete of the Year Award

Tuesday 4 October 2011

2011 World Athlete of the Year Award - IAAF nominates 3 Kenyans

IAAF announced the nominees for the 2011 World Athlete of the Year Awards both men and women. Kenya got its 3 names with last year's winner David Rudisha and Patrick Makau nominated for the men's award while Vivian Cheruiyot was nominated for the ladies version.

Image courtesy of www.iaaf.org

Going by the exploits on the track (and field where applicable), Kenya's Vivian Cheruiyot is heads and shoulders above most of the nominees, sample this;

Vivian Cheruiyot in Daegu 2011 - www.iaaf.org

In 2010, she won the African championships in 5000m held in Nairobi and also won the gold in the Commonwealth Games held in New Delhi in October. She competed in the Diamond League being part of the winnings that same season. She crowned the year by winning the 5km race in Bolzano, Italy known as the BOClassic popularly known as the Corsa Internazionale di San Silvestro.
Come 2011, she started her year by leading Kenya's senior women's cross-country team to collecting individual and team titles. The big one though was the World Championships held in Daegu where she opted to do both the 5000m and 10,000m easily collecting gold in both events; a first from any Kenyan both male or female.
Our other two nominees for finalists would be Valeria Adams -shot-putter and Sally Pearson -100m women's hurdler.
As for the men, our bet is on Usain Bolt taking the male category. After missing out the better part of last year through injury, he was the best bet for double gold in 100 & 200m but a disqualification meant he ended up with the 200m but came back to anchor the Jamaican 4x100m men to end the World Championships on a high ( while breaking the world-record at it!).
The other 2 nominees would be fellow Jamaican sprinter Yohan Blake and David Rudisha.
According to www.iaaf.org; an e-mail poll is ongoing to close on 23rd October, after which 3 finalists in both male and female categories will be selected and announced by the IAAF. The winners will be announced from these during the 2011 World Athletics Gala on 12th November.

1 comment:

Ghafla!Guy said...: Patrick Makau gets my vote! Too bad the late Samuel Wanjiru ain't around, he would have been a major contender!; 5 October 2011 at 10:57

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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Tuesday 4 October 2011

2011 World Athlete of the Year Award - IAAF nominates 3 Kenyans

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