Protests have been raised by race walkers, Emily Ngii and Samuel Gathimba after their names were excluded from the Kenyan final Olympics list. The two athletes have now staged an ongoing protest and demand answers from Athletics Kenya regarding the impending issue. The race walkers have also threatened to stay at the training camp in Japan until clarity is brought out on why exactly their names are missing from the final entries of the Tokyo Olympic Games.
Team Kenya Olympics General Team Manager, Barnaba Korir stated that the two athletes had failed to attain World Athletics qualification standards in their respective events with the deadline window for qualification times being on 29th June, 2021. Ngii and Gathimba however said that they in fact did qualify according to Olympic standards during the national trials that were held on 18th June at the Moi International Sports Center, Kasarani. They completely dismissed Korir's statements saying that their events and performances were timed electronically having passed the qualification mark.
Apparently Gathimba is a 2-time Africa Athletics Championship 20km race walking gold medalist. He is also a 2-time Africa silver medalist, claiming the honors in 2014 and in 2015 at the All Africa Games. Emily Ngii also comes up as a star athlete having won a gold medal at the 2019 African Games held in Rabat, Morocco and also a silver medal at the 2014 African Championships in Athletics.