Kenya’s Chef De Mission for Commonwealth Games heads to the UK

Kenya’s Chef-De-Mission of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games will this week attend the Games Open Days that the Organising Committee of B2022 has organised in UK from 28th March 2022 until 30th March 2022.

During the Open Days, the Organising Committee of the Games will take the Commonwealth Games Associations representatives through the critical organisation services and facilities in order for them to adequately prepare their teams.

The Chef-De-Mission, John Ogolla has been accompanied to the visit by the Chief Executive of the Games, Humphrey Kayange and NOC-K Treasurer Eliud Kariuki.

The team will visit the four villages; University of Birmingham, University of Warwick, NEC hotels and Satellite Village in London.

The Kenyan teams will be spread in these four villages according to their proximity to the sports venues.

During the visit as well, important aspects of the Games are expected to be discussed including logistics plan for the teams considering different teams being in different villages, covid protocols, ports of arrival and accreditation.

Unlike other Games’ processes where accreditation is done in advance prior to team departures from their home countries, with their accreditation (or pre-valid cards) also acting as visas, teams to the Birmingham Games will have to get visas in their home countries and only complete their accreditation on arrival in UK.

Other matters include the sports and competition updates and confirmed venues for each sport, considering paralympic events and accessibility.

The delegation will also pay a courtesy call to the High Commission in London to discuss diplomacy matters and possible support to the Kenyan Team by the High Commission during the July-August event.

With just 122 days to the opening ceremony, the preparations are on course. 137 athletes from Kenya, led by sprinter Ferdinand Omanyala have qualified so far and some sports are still on the qualification pathway.