HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 685681,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/685681/?format=api",
"text_counter": 314,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. (Eng.) Gumbo",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 24,
"legal_name": "Nicholas Gumbo",
"slug": "nicholas-gumbo"
},
"content": "On victory and when you sometimes win so often, it is difficult to appreciate what you have achieved. But, it is said: “Victory is sweetest when you have known defeat.” I have been following the Olympics closely. I was very impressed that when Fiji, a small island nation, won their first Olympic gold medal in the seven’s rugby team, their Prime Minister, Mr. Frank Bainimarama, declared a national holiday to celebrate that achievement. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, life’s real failure and tragedy is when you do not realize how close you are to success when you give up. Our athletes have consistently refused to give up and, in so doing, they have hoisted our flag high all the time. It is also worth to note that this achievement of our athletes follows in the footsteps of great Kenyan men and women who have trail-blazed over the years since we became a Republic in 1964. I would be failing not to mention those great Kenyans who have achieved so much for our country, led by our pioneer gold medalist Naftali Temu in 1968 in Mexico City. Those Olympic Games also saw our great Kipchoge Keino and Amos Biwott winning gold medals in the 1,500 meters and the 3,000 steeplechase. Over time, up to the time we went to Rio, this great nation has won a total of 31 gold medals in the Olympics, 38 silver medals and 29 bronze medals and, in total, 98 medals. That medal haul is much more than the entire medals haul for the whole of Africa multiplied by two. So, I think our athletes are the true heroes of our nation. When our athletes compete, they compete as Kenyans and not as representatives of our various communities. We too support them as Kenyan patriots. I remember on Saturday morning I was up very early with my daughter who is also a very big athletic buff, when the 5,000 meters race was going on and our two ladies, Vivian Jepkemoi Cheruiyot and Helen Onsando Obiri were competing against the apparently invincible Ethiopian Almaz Ayana. As the gap was widening to about 200 meters, I remember vividly the commentator saying that the chasing Kenyan pack are like wounded greyhounds chasing a very fast rabbit. Hon. Temporary Speaker, I can tell you the joy in my house when first Vivian Cheruiyot and then Hellen Obiri passed the Ethiopian, was so much that everybody who was sleeping was forced to wake up and cheer with us. This is what our athletes do to us. We support them and appreciate them as Kenyans. Our Olympic winners are the true heroes of this great nation and they should be treated as such. Indeed, I want to use the Floor of this House to appeal to His Excellency the President, at the end of this year, when he is giving national honours, to award glittering national honours to all those heroes and heroines who have proved that, indeed, Kenya can fight with the best in the world on matters athletics. Time permitting, if I will be here next year, I will be proposing that, in subsequent budgets and in every Olympic year, this House should devote a generous budget to guarantee generous cash rewards to all our athletes who win medals at the international stage. As a House, we must say that never again should a gold medal winner at the Olympics ever live and die in poverty like the fate that befell our pioneer gold medalist, Mr. Naftali Temu who, unfortunately, despite being the first Kenyan to win a gold medal at the Olympics, died an extremely poor man in a general ward at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH). I have said that life’s real failure and tragedy is when you do not realize how close you are to success when you give up. It is, therefore, such a pity that, as our athletes toil every day to place Kenya on the world map, some greedy selfish individuals only see their exploits as the opportunities for self-gain and plunder. This is why as a House, we must condemn this extreme The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}