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Athletics Kenya president Jack Tuwei has lauded the technical team from World Athletics who have been in the country to assess the venue for Agnes Tirop Memorial World Cross Country Tour.

Tuwei says the team whose main role was to mark the route for the event set for February 12 in Eldoret has done great work in giving the athletes both local and international something to work with.

 “Revealing the route will give athletes a picture of what to expect and therefore inform them on the major aspects of training they need to focus on in what is expected to be a busy season.

I am happy we have a great technical team that is working on it to ensure that they deliver a quality course. We must ensure that we get it right,” said Tuwei.

The team from World Athletics and the Local Organising Committee on Tuesday visited the venue that will stage the event at the Lobo village in Kapseret, in the outskirts of Eldoret town, where the top class runners will be competing.

The race was named Agnes Tirop Memorial World Cross country Tour to celebrate the fallen ex-world cross country champion Agnes Tirop who was murdered last month.

Top cream

AK Vice president in charge of competitions Paul Mutwii, who led the contingent to the venue, said: “This was a good plan to host such a big event in Africa and as a nation, we are happy to host the first edition of World Athletic Tour.”

On his part, Technical Director Ibrahim Hussein said everything is going according to plan.

“There is room for creativity as we start work on the course in two days’ time. As you have seen the course is wide and scenic,” said Hussein.

He added: “Right now the experts are marking and designing the course which we are going to approve.

We expect the event to host top cream athletes because there will be no world cross country next year.”

Tuwei is also hopeful of executing a successful event with countries expected to send their top cross country runners as a build-up for the World Athletics Championships in Oregon and the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham next year.