2016 Olympic Games

Kenyan Track Team Stays In Dump, Government Disbands Olympic Committee

Kenyan Track Team Stays In Dump, Government Disbands Olympic Committee

The Olympic closing ceremony was on Sunday, but the Kenyan team didn't leave until Thursday because they apparently fired up that "three days before and aft

Aug 26, 2016 by Dennis Young
Kenyan Track Team Stays In Dump, Government Disbands Olympic Committee
The Olympic closing ceremony was on Sunday, but the Kenyan team didn't leave until Thursday because they apparently fired up that "three days before and after" button on KAYAK.com to save money on their flights out of Rio. Olympic marathoner and Kenyan Parliament member Wesley Korir tweeted about it:


And, according to Korir, their accommodations after the Olympic Village closed were bad:






This looks like part of a larger bureaucratic battle over control of Kenyan track. Legendarily corrupt Athletic Kenya chairman Isaiah Kiplagat died on Wednesday, and the excellently named Kenyan sports minister Hassan Wario dissolved Kenya's Olympic Committee on Thursday.

The International Olympic Committee has funny lines about what it will and won't tolerate, but one hard, bright line it draws is against government meddling in Olympic Committees. Asbel Kiprop retweeted this yesterday:


It sounds like the press conference where Wario dissolved the Olympic Committee was extremely entertaining. According to one report,

"Just minutes after Wario announced the decision and walked away without taking questions from a packed press conference room, NOCK Secretary General Francis K. Paul, who was just a yard away from Wario when he was announcing, said they will be staying put.

'The minister cannot just disband us. I don't think the CS has powers to disband NOCK. If he does, that will be termed as government interference, and it means the country will be banned from participating in the Olympics. We will inform the IOC and wait for their response. We will go to court if necessary. We are not going to vacate office. We don't occupy any government premises. We pay rent for our own office.'"

It seems like Kenya's Olympic Committee didn't manage its athletes that well in Rio. Though Kenya's athletes won 13 medals and six golds--their second-best Olympic haul ever--there were complaints about uniforms and post-Games living, and before competition even began, Ferguson Rotich's coach infamously went to drug testing in his place. 

The next summer Olympics are four years away, so Kenya probably won't end up banned from them. But Wario's move is not going to decrease the dysfunction surrounding Kenyan track.