NAIROBI, Kenya, May 8- All Africa Games champion, Julius Yego will become the first Kenyan Javelin thrower to compete at an Olympics in London this summer.
The National Olympics Committee-Kenya (Nock) confirmed on Tuesday that ‘YouTube man’ Yego has been accepted by world athletics governing IAAF to compete at the event that runs from July 27 to August 12 despite qualifying with B-Standard.
“Kenya is classified as one of the countries that must qualify its athletes through category A in almost all disciplines and we do not enjoy the privilege of athletes represent this country under category B
“The only exception is Yego who has been accepted by IAAF because he is going to participate in Javelin and that is the only category B,” Nock Executive Officer, Stephen arap Soi, announced in Nairobi.
All Africa Games champion Yego, who smashed his own national record of 78.34m while winning gold in Maputo last year with 79.95 in Nairobi on April 17 has thus fulfilled his dream of being the first ever Javelin thrower to represent his country at the Olympics.
“It will be a good thing for me to be in the Olympics. I will never forget the honour of being an Olympian but I’m aiming at throwing the A-Standard.
“My dream is just to appear at the stadium to represent Kenya as the first Javelin thrower from Kenya. It is hard to match what those people do since we are too far behind but competing against them will be enough for me,” Yego who gained fame by disclosing he had turned to YouTube to improve on his technique in Maputo said after his feat that beat the London B-Standard of 79.50m.
The All Africa Games titleholder is scheduled to travel to Finland this month for specialised training having achieved his career best after spending a month at the nation reputed as the capital of Javelin throwing in the world.
At the same time, Soi added only other Kenyan individual competitor, boxer Benson Mucharu; the Commonwealth Games flyweight silver medallist has booked his London ticket following the Africa qualifiers that ended last weekend in Algiers, Algeria.
“We have always talked about Jason Dunford qualifying. He qualified on March 23 in category B but FINA require that all swimmers must qualify under Category A and we are still pursuing the issue of his qualification,” Soi stated in reference to the Commonwealth 50m butterfly gold medallist who is the country’s biggest hope on the pool.
Dunford who briefly held the world record in 100m butterfly at the Beijing Olympics when he qualified for the semi finals won gold medals in the 50 and 100m butterfly, silvers in the 50m backstroke, 100m freestyle and 200m butterfly and a bronze in the 50m freestyle at last year’s All Africa Games in Maputo.
The men 4X400m relay team that sealed their Olympics ticket by finish seventh at the finals is the only team line-up that is assured of travelling to London with the country sweating on their women boxers who travel to China on Wednesday and the table tennis squad
