BEIJING, August 8 – Kenya’s Olympic squad made its much awaited entry into the Bird\’s Nest stadium in Friday\’s Beijing Olympics opening ceremony led by flag bearer Grace Momanyi.
Kenya, whose captain former 800m champion Wilfred Bungei, joins the squad later in the week, has entered a 170 -member team to the Games with part of them already having paraded at the spectacular opening ceremony where more than 200 countries are taking part in.
Teams did not stride in, in the usual alphabetical order, order but followed a Chinese alphabet order to represent the host’s diverse culture.
More than 11,000 athletes from around the world paraded at the colorful ceremony and will all be vying in various sports disciplines for around 1,000 medals in 302 events.
Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka joined around 80 world leaders for the opening show and is expected to visit the Kenya team at the Olympic village tomorrow.
KENYA’S MEDALS CHASE STARTS
Kenya was lined up to start off in the first day’s program with the nation’s top swimmer Jason Dunford doing the 100m butterfly and the 100m freestyle, after earning his qualification by taking part in several races in the 2007 World Championships in Melbourne Australia, and making it to the finals.
In the later programs, Aziz Ali (Light Heavyweight) will lead the rest of the pugilists to the ring on Friday including Suleiman Bilali (Africa Light Fly Weight champion), Nicholas Okoth (Flyweight) and Bernard Ngumba (Feather Weight) will start off the boxing schedules.
Mathew Lidaywa will begin Kenya’s renewed quest for an Olympic medal in rowing. He will be doing the 2000m single’s sculls event.
Athletics, Kenya’s forte, is scheduled to kick-off on August 16.