Kenya National Paralympics Committee (KNPC) chairman Ronald Milare has vowed to effect proposals made during their postmortem for the Paris Games.
The body held the meeting on Sunday in Eldoret to discuss the team’s performance at the Summer Games that ended on September 9.
KNPC promised change that would eventually produce the much desired results come the 2028 Los Angeles Paralympic Games among other top para sports competitions.
Kenya finished 74th in the medal standings behind eight other African countries at the Paris Games.
Algeria was the leading African country at 25th position with 11 medals; six gold and five bronze.
The last two editions have witnessed the country failing to win gold for the first time since the 1988 Seoul Games in Korea.
KNPC had targeted at least four medals but fell short, collecting only one silver medal through Samson Ojuka in men’s long jump T37 as victory proved elusive for the second time. Kenya managed a bronze only at the 2021 Tokyo Games.
Milare said that they had learnt their lessons and that they would effect several proposals to ensure the country takes a formidable side to the next Paralympic Games and increase the number of medal. He also noted that even though they registered mixed results in Paris, the country had more numbers and disciplines compared to the previous Games.
“I would like to say we did well at the Paris Games as five of our athletes managed to register their Personal Best and we also bagged a silver medal. I want to congratulate the team for good performance, we count our blessings and name them one by one. We have picked a lot from the Games and we are going to work on the recommendations because I also know where we may have dropped the ball,” Milare said.
He added: “The journey to Los Angeles starts immediately and we will ensure that we do things right this time. Sports change and evolve daily and we must also change with time, we also need to incorporate sports science.”
Some of the recommendations made were to ensure that participants in selected disciplines took part in international events to be able to pick accumulative points that count as part of the Paralympic qualification and the need to recruit younger athletes.
Milare noted that having five disciplines at the Games where taekwondo and cycling added to the numbers as a good achievement hence they will double their efforts to have over 30 athletes for the 2028 Los Angeles Games compared to 14, who made it to Paris.
