Swimmers in action during the 2025 Africa Aquatics Zone Three Swimming Championship at Kasarani Aquatic Stadium on October 16, 2025. [Jonah Onyango, Standard]
The stadiums going up across this country prove what we can do when we decide something matters. Kenyan swimming still has one 50-metre pool, nine lost years, and a story it keeps telling itself about Beijing.
Begin with the concrete because it settles the argument before it starts.
At Jamhuri Grounds on Ngong Road, Talanta Stadium—a 60,000 seater facility—now stands where a showground once stood. Ground was broken there in March 2024. Renovations continue at both Nyayo, Kasarani and Kipchoge Keino stadiums.
In June next year, the continent arrives for the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon), to play in venues that, three years ago, either did not exist or did not function.
Understand what that proves. This country can commission a venue, finance it, engineer it and deliver it to continental standard in about two years once it decides the thing matters.
The will, the money and the technical capacity are all demonstrably in the room. That is a real achievement, and this column has no interest in pretending otherwise.
Now drive 11 kilometres north-east, to Kasarani. Our own federation, Kenya Aquatics, describes the pool there as the only 50-metre facility of its kind in East Africa. It was built for the 1996 African Championships. It is 30 years old. It is one competition-standard long-course pool for fifty-five million people and, essentially, the entire national aquatic estate.