Why government will not construct ‘historic’ Kamariny Stadium
11th October 2023
Sports Cabinet Secretary Ababu Namwamba noted the government will instead set up a high performace centre.
- The construction of the Kamariny Stadium was one of the promises made by President William Ruto in his campaign.
- Sports CS Namwamba noted the location of the stadium was not ideal for high profile competitions.
- Namwamba noted that the government decided to replace the proposed idea with an international training complex.
By Tony Kipkorir
Sports Cabinet Secretary Ababu Namwamba
disclosed on Tuesday that the Kenyan government will no longer follow through with its plans of contructing the
proposed Kamariny International Stadium in Elgeyo Marakwet.
According to Namwamba, the decision was made after extensive research from the government deduced that the location of the grounds was not ideal for high profile competitions because of the high altitude.
“In the last one year have done a very thorough assessment of the needs of every part of this country. We have assessed the location where Kamariny is, its uniqueness and we determined through our empirical assessment that we do not need an international stadium in Kamariny.
“Because of the high-altitude nature of Kamariny, no one is ever going to be competing there. Kamariny is not a place to compete,” explained the former Budalangi Constituency Member of Parliament.
Instead of having a stadium constructed in that place, Namwamba noted that the government decided to replace the proposed idea with an international training complex.
“Kamariny is a place for elite training. So, in our new sports and arts infrastructure development masterplan, we have replaced the stadium with an elite international standard training complex.
It is going to be an elite training center that will allow our athletes to train at high altitude with the best facilities you can think of,” Namwamba commented.
Moreover, the CS divulged that the people of Elgeyo/Marakwet County will reap fruits from the project due to sports tourism.
According to him, many individuals from different regions of the universe would want to visit the place and experience the unique environment in which Kenya’s world beating runners train, giving an example of how Chinese sports officials were eager to discover the secret behind Kenya’s remarkable success in athletics.
“I have just come back from China and I was meeting with my Chinese counterpart. The question that keeps popping at you is what is that athletes from this belt eat.
And my answer was, let the Chinese come and find out. So, come and train in Kamariny, come and train in Iten. And as you train, build a whole tourism eco-system.
That is what we have agreed and we have discussed with the County government of Elgeyo/Marakwet and we are already making plans to turn Kamariny into an elite training centre," he ended.
The CS made the revelations during the home welcoming ceremony of Kelvin Kiptum, who smashed the men’s marathon world record in sensational fashion over the weekend.
Kiptum, a resident of Chepkorio, a small shopping centre domiciled a few kilometres from Kamariny clocked 2:00.35 to smash the previous world mark of 2:01.09 set by legendary runner Eliud Kipchoge.