Team Kenya are building up to the commencement of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games with the departure of the first batch of athletes on Sunday evening.
The East African country will have 83 athletes compete in six sports in Paris – athletics, rugby sevens, judo, fencing, swimming and volleyball, two fewer than the 85 athletes who participated in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Kenya’s Sevens Rugby team left the capital city of Nairobi on Sunday aboard an Air France flight for the French coastal town of Miramas, about 743km south of Paris.
Later on Thursday, the country’s volleyball team alongside a group of track stars will leave the country. The sprinters include Wiseman Were (400m hurdles), Zablon Ekwam (400m) and the country’s 4x400m mixed relay team.
Africa’s fastest man, Ferdinand Omanyala will connect the Netherlands to join the rest of the country’s contingent in Miramas on Friday.
Omanyala was in action at the GBK Games in Hengelo on Sunday and he won the men’s 100m event in 10.01secs.
Meanwhile, it was another eventful weekend for Kenya Athletics as Faith Kipyegon broke her world record in the women’s 1500m at the Diamond League meeting in Paris on Sunday.
Kipyegon shattered her previous time of 3:49.11secs to set a new world record of 3:49.04secs in the women’s 1500m.
She will be expected to join Kenya’s representatives in Miramas before the Paris 2024 opening ceremony.
