NAIROBI, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) -- Kenya has shelved plans to reintroduce the Tusker Night of Fame, a one-day international athletics meeting in Nairobi equivalent to the Diamond League.
The meeting, which was last held in 2014, was due to return this year, but with Athletics Kenya (AK) yet to secure a financier, AK vice president Paul Mutwii said on Thursday it was unattainable.
The one-day meeting costs about two million U.S. dollars to organize and provide the required prize money. Kenya is hopeful that global athletics governing body IAAF will have one leg of its lucrative Diamond League in Nairobi soon.
The only African venue to form part of the Diamond League is Rabat, which was incorporated last year. The other 13 legs are in Asia, the USA and Europe.
Speaking in Nairobi after he released the track and field calendar of events, Mutwii said the focus for next season will be on the World Cross Country Championships in Denmark and the World Athletics Championships in Qatar.
"We have only four cross country meetings in the calendar. There will be no international one-day meeting in Nairobi and we want to focus on the World Cross Country and World Athletics Championships," he said.
At the same time, AK will organize a conference for top athletes in order to educate them on the latest anti-doping trends.
"We shall form a committee that will come up with the logistics of the conference where AK will take care of all the expenses for the participants," said Mutwii.
Kenya will also shift its national trials for the World Cross Country Championships and World Relay Championships from Nairobi to Eldoret in April, in order to encourage foreign athletes training in the country to compete with and help push Kenyans to secure qualification times.
A number of American, European and Chinese athletes have pitched camp in Eldoret to exploit the high altitude training ahead of the World Championships next year.
Kenya's cross country season will start this month, in line with its elite runners heading to Europe to compete in European Permit meetings.
This year, there will be five races with another four in January. The IAAF cross country permit series starts on November 11 in Burgos, Spain, and has two more races in 2018. The rest of the seven competitions will be held in 2019 across Portugal, Spain, Italy, Denmark and Germany.
The European highlight will be the continental cross country championships in the Dutch city of Tilburg on December 9, with the World Championships taking place in Aarhus, Denmark on March 30.
