If I may borrow a phrase from the Americans, "What part of "NO" don't they understand?"
We wouldn't be so dumb as to 'donate' the only gold medal we are assured of or would we?
Top runners' face spotted on web photo
Story by FRED WAGA in Athens
Publication Date: 08/20/2004
Kenya yesterday rejected an eleventh hour attempt by Qatar to sneak in Saif Saaeed Shaheen into the men?s steeplechase.
National Olympic Committee of Kenya secretary general Tom O?Omuombo said yesterday that they had stumbled upon Shaheen?s entry in addition to seven other Qatari and Bahraini athletes and protested to the International Olympic Committee.
O?Omuombo insisted that the seven athletes be ejected from the Olympic Village with immediate effect.
O?Omuombo said Qatar had changed the names of some Kenyans and adopted Arabic ones, making it difficult for Nock to identify who had been entered for the Games.
But Nock stumbled upon the photographs of the athletes posted in the Games intranet website, who were listed as starters in various events.
Yesterday, Nock only had five names of those they wanted ejected.
The Qataris were Shaheen, formerly Stephen Cherono, Hassan Abdullahi, formerly Albert Chepkurui and a third Qatari whose name Nock did not have.
The Kenyan association also said Leonard Mucheru, Nicholas Kemboi and James Kwalya appeared in the photographs on the intranet website under different Arabic names.
But Nock said they would not stop Gregory Konchellah from running for Qatar because he had never run for Kenya before.
Shaheen, a 21-year-old Kenyan-born athlete, who switched citizenship a year ago, is the fastest steeplechaser in the world but is ineligible to run in Athens because he has not sat out the required three years' residency period.
O?Omuombo said an emir from Qatar had been working behind the scenes to have Kenya review its stand on the Shaheen issue but Nock had stood its ground and refused to relent.
He said there had been pressure from senior officials in the Kenyan government, Athletics Kenya and even his own organisation to have these athletes run for their adopted countries.
Last month, foreign minister Ali Mwakwere said Kenya would not allow any of its athletes to run for their adopted countries.
O?Omuombo has discounted suggestions to the effect that they were in breach of a protocol agreement between former sports minister Najib Balala and Qatari officials to the effect that the Qataris wound underwrite the costs of the construction of a stadium in Eldoret in exchange for Kenyan permission to allow Kenyan athletes to compete for Qatar at the world championships and the Olympics.
Shaheen gave Qatar their first gold medal at last year?s world championships in St. Denis, Paris, France.
Qatar also made an overture to sign up Kenyan soccer player Dennis Oliech during this year?s African Nations Cup, allegedly offering him Sh200million to change citizenship.
O'Omuombo said Nock had not seen or been informed of any such agreement or letters of protocol and added that the government?s stated policy was to discourage athletes from selling their birth right to rich nations.
The permanent secretary in the sports ministry, Rebecca Nabutola, yesterday visited the Kenyan camp at the Olympic Village where she exhorted athletes to avoid selling their birth right by becoming citizens of other countries.
Sources at the Olympic Village said pressure to have Shaheen compete for Qatar has been tremendous with lobbyists quoting figures as high as Sh10 million in inducement fees.
The Kenya team?s flat at the Olympic Village is directly opposite the Qatari team's and that Qataris of Kenyan descent such as Gregory Konchellah pay frequent visits to the Kenyan camp.
Konchellah, the son of a former Olympian Billy Konchellah, will represent Qatar in the 800m races.
The two-time world champion competes in the same event his father did more than a decade ago.