Speedster Otieno lands Safaricom sponsorship

Olympic-bound 100m sensation Mark Otieno’s preparations for his debut at the Olympics stage have been boosted as Safaricom sponsored the athlete to a tune of Ksh 1 million.

Otieno, alongside University of Nairobi (UoN) student Ferdinand Omanyala, made history when they became the first Kenyan 100m runners to qualify for the Olympic Games set for July 23 to August 8 in Tokyo, Japan.

Heading to the Athletics Kenya (AK) Olympics trials having not achieved the qualification standards and running with a nagging hamstring injury, he managed second place to qualify with a 10.05 time while Omanyala set a national record at 10.02 seconds.

“We were really inspired by how Mark Otieno has gone beyond to reach his goal of representing Kenya in the 100m race at the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. That is why I am excited to announce that SafaricomPLC committed KES 1 million to go towards supporting Mark Otieno’s training needs and to cover for other competition logistics for the rest of the year,” Safaricom’ Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Peter Ndegwa announced.

In 2017, Otieno ran a Kenyan record of 10.14 seconds to win the national 100m title in Nairobi, booking a place to the 2017 World Championships. In 2021, he participated in several races in Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, South Africa among other countries in a bid to attain the Olympics qualifying mark of 10.05 but only made the historical feat on home soil at Kasarani.

Last week the company unveiled Ksh. 20 million sponsorship for the team that will represent Kenya at the Olympics. The funds have been set aside for the ceremonial kit that will be used by the Kenyan contingent at the games.