KENYA – (WARSOOR) – Kenya will establish the first and largest online museum next year to showcase the country’s rich heritage in sports across the years.
Announcing the plan, Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed said the initiative is a collaboration between the Ministry of Sports and Culture, Google Apps and Culture, Google Kenya, National Olympic Committee-Kenya, Athletics Kenya and National Paralympics Committee, among others.
“The platform will showcase some of the country’s sporting moments. It will display the super powers of Kenya’s athletes and how iconic sports heroes are improving lives in their communities and pushing the known boundaries of athletic performance one second at a time,” Amina said.
She urged all sporting disciplines to fully participate in the project whose end aspiration is to share the unbounded gift of Kenya’s rich sporting history with the rest of the world.
“It will be the first and the largest digital content feature ever done in Kenyan sport. It will celebrate our rich sporting history across geographies, disciplines and time,” she said.
Amina was speaking at the Nyayo Stadium on Tuesday afternoon when she presided over the 70th anniversary celebrations of Athletics Kenya.
She praised the federation for the work they have done over the years to put Kenyan athletics on a higher pedestal.
“The federation is the most successful sports body not only in Kenya, but in the world, having produced a galaxy of stars who have followed in the footsteps of pioneers,” Amina said.
She, however, lamented the increasing threat of doping to Kenya’s reputation as an athletics giant and vowed to work with AK to crush it.
“We have adopted a multiagency approach to deal with isolated cases of doping peddlers. We will be very unforgiving towards such people. Foreigners found abetting the vice will be deported, medical doctors deregistered, coaches delicensed and managers relieved of all their responsibilities,” she said.
AK president Jackson Tuwei similarly vowed to clamp down on the vice to ensure the country’s reputation remains untainted.
“We must continue existing, but we can’t achieve that when doping is a threat. We must take that battle head on,” Tuwei said. Tuwei succeeded the late Isaiah Kiplagat who had led the federation from 1992-2015.