Athletics Kenya and the Confederation of African Athletics confirmed on Monday that Nairobi will host the 2026 Africa Youth Athletics Championships at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani, from the 14th to the 16th of August. The announcement formalises a bid that Kenya submitted in early 2025 and marks the first time the championships, open to athletes aged 16 and 17, will be held in East Africa since the event’s inaugural edition in Mauritius in 2017.
The decision to award the event to Nairobi reflects a broader confidence in Kenya’s ability to stage major continental athletics competitions, built partly on the successful delivery of the 2021 World Athletics Under-20 Championships at the same Kasarani venue. It also carries political weight: with Kenya co-hosting the 2027 AFCON alongside Uganda and Tanzania and actively building its international events portfolio under President Ruto’s sports diplomacy framework, the Africa Youth Athletics Championships adds another plank to the country’s case for future World Athletics events.
Kasarani Ready for a New Generation
The Kasarani complex has undergone significant upgrades in the past eighteen months. The synthetic track surface was relaid in late 2024 to World Athletics Class 1 certification standards, a requirement for hosting championships and a condition attached to the facility’s use for the 2027 AFCON opening match. The field event runways and landing areas have been extended to accommodate the full youth programme, and the warm-up track adjacent to the main stadium has been resurfaced and equipped with timing infrastructure. Works on the media centre and athlete accreditation facilities are scheduled for completion in July.
Athletics Kenya’s competitions director Moses Kwemoi said the championships would double as a domestic talent showcase. “We expect 52 African nations to send teams. For our own young athletes, competing in front of a home crowd at this level is irreplaceable preparation for what comes next,” Kwemoi said. The selection trials for the Kenyan team are scheduled for the Kenya Secondary Schools Championships in Naivasha in late July, with the national youth squad announced on the 4th of August.
Kenya is expected to be particularly competitive in the 1,500 metres, 3,000 metres, steeplechase, and middle distance events, where the depth of talent from Rift Valley and Western Kenya schools has consistently produced athletes who go on to senior international careers. Coach Barnabas Korir, who heads Athletics Kenya’s youth programme, was keen to highlight progress in non-traditional areas. “We have a 17-year-old high jumper from Kisumu who cleared 2.14 metres at the national schools championships. A shot putter from Nairobi who is already in the international rankings for his age group. We are becoming a more complete athletics nation,” he said.
Economic and Logistical Preparations
The championship is expected to bring approximately 3,000 athletes, coaches, officials, and accredited media to Nairobi over the competition period. The Kenya Tourism Board and Nairobi County government are coordinating a hospitality programme that will include guided visits to Nairobi National Park and the Giraffe Centre as part of a wider effort to convert visiting delegations into future leisure tourists. Accommodation arrangements are centred on hotels along Thika Road and the KICC area, accessible via the Nairobi Expressway. Athletics Kenya confirmed that the SGR shuttle service between Nairobi’s city terminus and Ruiru will be extended with additional early-morning services during competition days to ease traffic pressure on Thika Road.
The championship’s legacy, Athletics Kenya hopes, will extend beyond the three days of competition themselves. Plans are in place for a youth coaches’ workshop to run on the margins of the event, with coaching educators from World Athletics leading sessions attended by school athletics coaches from all 47 counties. The federation has also partnered with Safaricom’s Blaze youth platform to create a digital talent tracker that will allow county athletics coordinators to log emerging young athletes and connect them with the national development programme, addressing what Kwemoi described as the persistent challenge of geography: that talented young runners in remote counties too often develop without ever coming to the attention of the national system. Live streaming rights have been secured with a pan-African broadcaster, giving Kenyan youth athletes exposure to a global audience that previous generations could only have dreamed of.
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