SportsKenya: Road to Olympics - 1992 Hermosa Ciudad de Barcelona

Wednesday, 30 May 2012

Road to Olympics - 1992 Hermosa Ciudad de Barcelona

Summer in the Spanish city of Barcelona is one of the best experiences to have in one's lifetime. That the IOC chose this city to host the 25th Olympiad and the then IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch came from the host country, was pure coincidence...

Barcelona '92 logo

The Games though were held amidst renewed promises of economic prosperity after the end of the Cold War which had plagued the 1970s and 80s Games. The following are the main highlights;

Cobi - '92 mascot

South Africa's comeback - after ending the apartheid form of government in 1990, the country was allowed back and presented renewed opposition to African and other countries which had enjoyed its isolation
The Dream Team - professionalism finally matched with the amateurs and the combination as they say was a dream. NBA 'superstars' were truly on a well-deserved Summer break. Led by Michael Jordan, this team easily won the gold medal in the men's basketball.
Germany came back as a unified state after East and West Germany's unification in 1990. It would become a force to reckon with especially for the indoor events.
Following USSR's dissolution, a number of former Soviet states opted to participate under the 'Unified Team' banner and ultimately beat the US on the medal standings. They were 12 of the 15 states.
The Games firmly put the Spanish city on the spotlight as one of the best tourist attractions in the world, a fact that some host cities have not been able to exploit.

Statistics:

William Tanui & Nixon Kiprotich - 800m Gold & Silver

Kenya would see its 1988 success take a dip, though not for lack of participation, more like other countries making the cut and pushing the competition higher. The following are the stats of Kenya's showing;

2 Gold Medals - Matthew Birir - 3000m steeplechase and William Tanui - 800m; 4 Silver; Richard Chelimo(the late), Nixon Kiprotich-800m, Patrick Sang -3000m s'chase and Paul Bitok - 5000m and finally Bronze medal ; Samson Kitur -400m and William Mutwol -3000m s'chase
The 10,000m was marked by poor officiating where a Moroccan athlete refused to leave the track even after being over-lapped. Khalid Skah eventually won the race but was disqualified by officials briefly before being reinstated as eventual winner.
Kenya as a whole participated in 29 events in 5 sports ; athletics, boxing, judo, shooting and weightlifting
A total of 49 participants represented the country : 40 men and 9 women
Besides Athletics, Kenya did not win a medal in any other discipline.

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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, 30 May 2012

Road to Olympics - 1992 Hermosa Ciudad de Barcelona

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