A 24-medal haul may be considered all right in some countries, but not in our circumstances.

When you consider that five of these medals were gold, and two came from the disabled disciplines, the immediate conclusion is that our athletes were a major let-down.

Only three gold medals came from mainstream athletics with the steeplechasers winning gold and silver a day before Kenya's 1,500m trio bagged gold, silver and bronze, and Ezra Sambu won the 400 metres final. 

For Kenya, a powerhouse in world athletics, these results are very worrying.

We are now bracing ourselves for the customary, tiresome self-recrimination from sports officials who will write voluminous reports on what went wrong, reports which will be hastily shelved once public indignation has abated.

But these disappointing results should have been expected going by the pitiful effort that went into raising funds for the games. The fund-raising committee failed to raise a single cent, which must be a record of sorts. 

As a result, the Government subsidised the funding-raising effort by mobilising Sh28 million, but this was way below the Sh45 million the All Africa Games Fund-Raising Board needed to send a 141 strong squad to Abuja. By the time the squad of 84 left, team morale had taken a considerable knock.

The Government must stop posturing and come out with concrete ways to develop sports. The need to enter more competitors in sporting events outside athletics and soccer must be moved beyond the discussion stage.

We appreciate that the Government can no longer continue to offer financial support to national sports associations. But it must find way of rewarding associations that have been able to market and promote their programmes such as those that run rugby, cricket and golf.

Sports Minister Najib Balala announced recently that the Government would show its appreciation to our sports heroes by having roads named after them. This is a step in the right direction. But it could go a step further by ensuring that these heroes, and not political lackeys, benefit from Government benevolence such as land allocations or other such rewards.

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