Watch me now !Esther Termens dances around Kenya's Rose Mbulo and Teresa Juma
Gone are the days when we thought we would go to some major tournaments abroad and come back at least with our heads high. Not this time.
No excuses, for not even scoring one hit, just one ! Ukraine V/s Kenya 6-0, Azerbaijan(hosts)V/s Kenya 13-0,Kenya V/s Chile 0-5, Belarus V/s Kenya 4-0, Kenya V/s Spain0-9 ! That's a statement right there.
I will remember our national women's coach convincing us that at least the ladies would get 2nd or 3rd position of the qualifiers. What a bluff !
But let's look at it from the preparations to the departure. First the usual culprits of not enough resources and funds is always there and let's just say that will never be. Secondly, who did the ladies play for their build-up matches ?.....our male counter-part teams from the National League.....that's a try but laughable too !
Let's look at the infrastructure. The only hockey ground that is of repute is the Hockey Grounds at Parklands. Well, by world standards, that ought to be the training grounds. Why do say ? The grounds are too small for any worthy training to take place. It is the only ground which has astro-turf (albeit 2nd hand...) in Kenya.
Now since we didn't get any from the qualifiers in Azerbaijan I guess we can lick our wounds and console ourselves for rising through the rankings from the 40th to the 22nd position in the world.
All's not lost if you ask me. I feel the ladies have what it takes to play against major world hockey powers. But with the kind of technical expertise and training regimen other countries undergo, we expected a bit too much of them. It's time ( and I'll say this for the umpteenth time ) that we invested in our sports. Not just sponsorship of 1-day tournaments and weekend arrangements but longer term plans. The money that some of our companies spend on the other niceties and irrelevant advertising and publicity can be channelled to sports and at least save our faces against such blushes.
Can you hear me ?
3 comments:
Hi, just a brief word on ladies' sports and why we may never progress far. It all starts with physical fitness. Our ladies have no clue nor do they have any targets as to the fitness targets they must attain in order to compete at that level. Watching most women playing (from other countries), you would be mistaken to think they are men in their running style, physique and everything else... just a little bit slower. Skill level aside, that I think should be the easiest to attain then work on the rest. $0.02 worth I hope.
Hehehe. Dataminer,maybe in some disciplines like hockey where everything never seems right. It's sad though that when we could exploit our athleticism and speed, we end up low on all departments.
I read about some sprint coach sometime back doing some tactical training with the Rugby 7s team. That seems to be working. Can't they have similar training techniques for other such sporting disciplines ? Thanks for your 2 cents worth of contribution !
Part of the problem is that there aren't any fixtures that cover the whole season. As a sportsman/woman there has to be rest time, off-season training where one could work on their fitness and get injuries looked at. But with KHU, you can't plan anything, you stay for months before you play and then on Tuesday you're given information to play on Saturday. What? The last time Impala played was on November 18th 2007 and their next game is on May 4th 2008, five months later, with three days notice. Honestly, coaches and players can't plan anything. It's not surprising that the game levels are low.
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