Paris 2024 Paralympics: Team Kenya commences training in France

As the Olympic Games ended in Paris on Sunday, Team Kenya for the Paralympic Games was settling down at its training camp in Compiegne, 79.3 kilometers from the French capital, ahead of the Games starting August 28 to September 8.

Team Kenya captain, multiple Paralympic champion Samwel Mushai, and his deputy rower Asiya Sururu are happy about the camp in Compiegne.

They opined that the camp would help them acclimatize ahead of the Games, where they hope for improved performance.

Team Kenya Chef De Mission Dennis Muga disclosed that they have endeavored to provide the best in camp for the team of 14 athletes and seven guides with a view of producing a good show.

Mushai, who is eying his fourth Paralympic Games as well as a third gold medal, is optimistic that his charges will produce better results compared to the 2021 Tokyo Paralympics, where the team secured a bronze.

Individually, Mushai hopes to reclaim his 5,000m T11 title for his fourth medal at the Paralympics.

Mushai won 1,500m T11 silver on his debut at the Paralympics during the 2008 Beijing Games. He would improve to gold four years later at the 2012 London Paralympic Games in a World and Games Record of three minutes and 58:37 seconds. He went on to seal a double at the 2016 Rio Paralympics with victory in the 5,000m T11.

Mushai said that they have had the best preparations, starting with residential training back home in three places in Nandi, Muranga, and Nairobi counties before moving to Compiegne.

“We loaded enough in Kenya, and that gave us good endurance in athletics. We now focus on speed work in Compiegne, heading into Paris,” said Mushai.

“The camp will help us focus and prepare well for the games,” explained Sururu, adding that her team won’t promise how many medals but a completely different performance.

 Sururu said that back in 2021, they didn’t have a camp with everyone training on their own. “Things are quite different now and we are happy because we had a camp in three places in Kenya before coming here in Compiegne.

Muga said that they have provided Kenyan cuisines, including Ugali and chicken, to the team, which is drawn from five disciplines: athletics, cycling, taekwondo, rowing, and powerlifting.

"This camp will be an exercise in futility if we don't provide the diet to our athletes," said Muga, the 1996 Atlanta and 2000 Sydney Paralympian.

Muga said that apart from taekwondo athletes Julieta Moipo and Stency Neema and javelin thrower Sheila Wanyonyi, who are still training in Kenya, the rest of the athletes arrived in two batches in Compiegne on Thursday and Friday last week.

Muga said they settled on Compiegne because of the leverage issues of accessibility and technical support in para-sports.

“We shall perform better than Tokyo,” said Muga, who expects not less than two gold medals from the team as he singled out the 2021 Tokyo Paralympics 1,500m T11 bronze medallist, Nancy Chelangat, John Lokedi (5,000m T46) and Wesley Sang (1,500m T13) among others as potential winners.