Sport is the central element of Kenya’s culture. It has thrived in various indigenous traditional sports for centuries. Some of these traditional games and sports include wrestling, stick fights, hunting with spears and arrows, racing exercises, bull fights,dances and board games.
Kenya’s most modern sports originated from the British colonisation. It had, before the establishment of formal schools, enjoyed the presence of professional teams in the form of clubs organised by the Colonial British masters and Asian contractors at the earlier time of 1922.
Years later, about 1925 formal Sports were introduced in Kenya’s schools. As part of extracurricular activities, a syllabus for teaching sports was produced in 1935 through physical training.
The first professionally organised sports to be introduced in Kenya were football and athletics ( track and field sports). Although its most popular sport remains football, today there are so many other sports played both professionally and as recreational physical activities in Kenya.
However, many of these other sports played in Kenya includes motor sports, field hockey, cricket, basketball, swimming, rugby, diving, running (track and field), volleyball, shooting,Ryu karate, shoring, kickboxing, judo, handball, netball, Goju, softball, mantis kenpo taekwondo, lawn tennis, table tennis, badminton, squash, Golf, canoeing,chess, goal Ball,Horse riding,/Equestrianism, polo, Weightlifting, bicycling, wrestling, archery,roller sports, Ice hockey, and mountain sports.
Kenya’s most successful Records : Track and field events
Today, Kenya is globally known for its dominance in middle-distance and long-distance races. A glory won since the 1970s by the retired Olympic and Commonwealth Games champion, Kipchoge Keino followed by Commonwealth Champion Henry Rono’s string of world record performances.
Making it Africa’s most successful Nation in the 2008 Olympics, Kenya also won 6 gold, 4 silver and 4 bronze during the Beijing Olympics.
Pamela Jelimo, the women’s 800m gold medalist who went ahead to win the Golden League jackpot as one of the new athletes who also have gained attention including Samuel Wanjiru who won the men’s marathon and Julius Yego the first Kenyan field athlete to win a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games on 4 January 1989.
Cross country championships
Kenyan men’s team, from 1986 to 2011 the last year the race was held, has won 24 World championships, dominating the IAAF world Cross Country championships in the past quarter century and has maintained a stronghold with Ethiopia on the event. This includes winning 18 in a row, until Ethiopia won in 2004–05.
Kenya men’s team and women’s team victory:
Ngugi has won the world championships five times between 1986–89, to 1992, while Countryman Paul Tergat became the first man to win five times in a row spanning 1995 to 1999, while Edith Masai won the 4-kilometer women’s short race three consecutive times (2003–2004).
Kenya had the champions in the men’s and women’s senior and junior races, so the country’s sports background would say, “is balanced and has been successful on both sides of the genders.
Winning four straight since 2009, Kenya’s junior women’s team has won 15 world championships matching their records of five times victory of 1991 (Belgium), 1993 (Spain), 1995 (United Kingdom), 1996 (South Africa) and 2010 (Poland). The junior men’s team has won 23 titles since 1988.
