Nairobi planning bid for 2018 Commonwealth Games

NAIROBI is
planning to bid for the 2015
All-Africa Games and the
2018 Commonwealth Games
as part of an ambitious
multi-billion pound
programme to regenerate the
city.

It has launched a new "Nairobi Metro 2030 Strategy" -
a grand plan to transform the Kenyan capital into a
major regional business and tourism hub.

The plan envisages a vast metropolis extending all the
way to Limuru, Machakos, Ruiru, Kangundo, Thika
and as far as Namanga on the Kenya-Tanzania
Border.

Kenya's Minister for Nairobi Metropolitan
Development, Mr Mutula Kilonzo, says the entire
regeneration plan will cost Sh33.2 trillion (£2.9 billion)
and hopes that staging two such major events will
help speed up the process.

It is estimated that hosting the two events could help
create 100,000 new jobs and transform Kenya's
information, communication and technology sector.

Nairobi is known as the "Green City in the Sun" and
was founded in 1899 as a simple rail depot on the
railway linking the costal town of Mombassa to
Uganda.
But it quickly grew to become the capital of British
East Afica in 1907 and eventually the capital of a free
Kenyan republic in 1963.
Nairobi is the most populous city in East Africa - and
the fourth largest in Africa - with an estimated urban
population of between three and four million.

Africa has never staged the Commonwealth Games.
Abuja, the Nigerian capital beaten in the race to host
the 2014 Games by Glasgow, has already promised
that it would bid again for 2018 and Durban is South
Africa is also expected to put itself forward.

Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean is also due to
decide next year whether to bid.
A bid from an Australian city was also expected but
the Government are refusing to back it because they
are currently concentrating on trying to win the right
to host the 2018 World Cup.

A decision is due in 2011.
On the track at least, Kenya is one of the most
successful countries to compete in the
Commonwealth Games.
They made their debut in 1954 and have since missed
only the 1986 Games in Edinburgh because of an
African boycott over Zola Budd.
Kenya have won 162 Commonwealth medals, mostly
in athletics and boxing, with 22 coming from a single
event, the 3,000 metres steeplechase - an event in
which, remarkably, in which they have provided all
three medallists in every Games since 1994.
The All-Africa Games were conceived, like the
Olympics, by Baron Pierre de Coubertin and were first
staged in Algiers in 1925.

But they did not take place again until 1960 in
Madagascar as the Friendship Games before being re-
christened the All-Africa Games for the 1965 event in
Brazzaville, Congo.

Since then they have been held every four years with
the 2007 edition in Algiers and the 2011 event due to
be staged in Lusaka in Zambia.

Kenya are the sixth most successful country in the
event's history with a total of 291 medals, 90 of
which have been gold.
The only other African city to have so far declared an
interest in staging the 2015 Games is Accra, the
capital of Ghana.

One possible stumbling block to staging either the
Commonwealth or All-Africa Games is that Nairobi is
1,661 metres (5,450 feet) above sea-level, which
would athletes from countries not born at altitude at
a major disadvantage.
But Johannesburg in South Africa did stage the 1999
All-Africa Games, and at 1,753m (5,751 feet) is even
higher.

The biggest international event that Kenya has staged
so far was the World Cross-Country
Championships at Mombassa in 2007.