Who Really Wins When Africa Hosts a Major Sporting Event?

Over the years Kenya has become an athletics powerhouse. However, Kenya’s rise did not happen by accident.

For decades, school athletics, cross-country, community competition and an increasingly sophisticated coaching ecosystem have created pathways from young runners to the global stage.

Around places such as Iten and Eldoret, athletes have access to established training environments where elite and aspiring runners train alongside one another. Experienced coaches, former athletes, training groups, competition and international connections allow knowledge to circulate from one generation to the next.

But there is another part of Kenya’s story that is easy to overlook: the movement of knowledge.

From the 1970s onwards, American universities became an important part of the development pathway for Kenyan athletes. They offered access not only to competition, but to coaching, facilities, education and sports science.

Some of those athletes later returned to Kenya, bringing qualifications, experience and international networks with them. The movement of athletes created a pipeline of knowledge.

That helped Kenya develop something more valuable than a pipeline of runners: a deeper coaching and development ecosystem.

Coaches learn from athletes. Athletes learn from other athletes. Former competitors become coaches. International connections bring new ideas into the system. Knowledge accumulated through decades of elite competition becomes part of the next generation’s development.

School competition feeds the pathway. Coaching develops it. Competition tests it. International exposure accelerates it. Knowledge brings learning back into the system.

Over time, success reinforces the system then young athletes can see a route from school competition to elite sport. Coaches develop expertise. Training centres grow. International connections expand. Investment follows performance.

Kenya did more than produce great runners. It built an athletics ecosystem. Therefore, there is a contradiction at the heart of Kenyan sport: 

Kenya is one of the world’s great athletics nations. Yet elite sporting excellence does not automatically translate into an active population.

Around 85% of Kenyan adolescents aged 11–17 is classified as physically inactive in the WHO data we examined.

There are other gaps too. Weekly community participation has been reported at around 80% for boys compared with 69% for girls.

There is also a socioeconomic divide, with participation among primary-age children reported at around 82% among higher-SES pupils compared with 60% among lower-SES pupils.

These figures do not diminish Kenya’s sporting achievements. They reveal something more important such as producing elite athletes and building an active society are two different challenges and Kenya has become exceptionally good at the first. However, Nairobi 2029 creates an opportunity to strengthen the second.

Which could potentially start a new chapter for Kenyan sport because hosting a major sporting event has a significance that goes beyond the competition itself.

It is well documented that Kenya is already investing heavily in sport.  Nevertheless, the Government plan to allocate to the State Department for Sports reached KSh16.1 billion ($124 millions) in 2023/24, following allocations of KSh15.2 billion ($117 millions) in 2021/22 and KSh12 billion in 2022/23 ($92 millions).

Plans have included 60 constituency-based sports academies, intended to support around 10,200 athletes and 4,800 technical personnel, alongside investment in stadia and community facilities.

The Kenya Academy of Sports has also been developing regional pathways. In 2025, around 4,000 under-18 athletes participated in regional camps, with 560 progressing to the next stage.

This figure matters because the 2029 championship does not need to create Kenya’s sporting system from scratch. The foundations already exist but the opportunity is to connect them.

A major championship can bring investment, international attention, tourism and infrastructure.

those benefits do not automatically become development. The real opportunity is to connect elite athletics with the wider sporting system: 

• A child discovering athletics through school.

• A girl staying involved in sport beyond primary school.

• A community gaining access to a safe, well-managed facility.

• A young coach gaining a recognised qualification.

• A local official developing international experience.

• A person with a disability finding a pathway into competitive or recreational sport.

• An athlete discovering that sport can lead not only to competition, but to coaching, sports science, administration, events, media or entrepreneurship.

This is where elite sport can become development not because winning medals automatically changes society but because the knowledge, infrastructure, investment and opportunities surrounding elite sport can be deliberately connected to the wider population.

London 2012 provides an interesting comparison. London used the Olympics Games to help build a sporting and regeneration legacy. The ambition was not simply to stage a successful Olympic and Paralympic Games. The event was connected to wider ambitions around regeneration, facilities, elite sport, participation, volunteering and community development.

The legacy was neither simple nor universally successful. However, the principle remains relevant, and a major sporting event has greater value when it is connected to a wider strategy.

Nairobi has a different starting point. It has already had one of the world’s strongest athletics cultures. The opportunity is to use 2029 to strengthen, broaden and extend that existing system.

There is another opportunity that is particularly relevant to Kenya: sport, tourism and the natural environment.

Kenya’s athletics identity is already connected to places such as the Rift Valley. International athletes travel to Kenya to train. Sport and tourism already intersect.

It could be argued that Nairobi 2029 could take that relationship further with Training camps, sports tourism, conservation, local enterprise and community development could become part of a broader sporting economy.

The principle is simple: international sport should create value that reaches beyond the stadium.

By the time the final race of Nairobi 2029 is finished, the cameras will eventually leave; The athletes will fly home; The sponsors will move on to the next event, but Kenya’s schools, clubs, coaches, facilities, athletes and communities will remain.

That is where the real legacy will be measured. Kenya does not need to prove that Africa can host a world-class athletics championship. It could demonstrate something more ambitious:

“A major sporting event can strengthen an existing sporting culture, widen access to it and create opportunities far beyond the elite athletes on the track.”

The event is the showcase, but the system is the legacy.