Stuck in India for months after the suspension of international travel occasioned by COVID-19 pandemic, four Kenyan athletes know the pain all too well.
The four, Millicent Gathoni, Michael Kipyego, Isaac Kipkemoi, and Benjamin Kipkasi had been India for a competition when the curtain fell quickly and a lockdown was imposed.
With no much of a choice, they had to survive on rice and Ugali alone as their only meal.
The quartet safely arrived back in Kenya last Friday and has been quarantined at St Georges Secondary School which is a government quarantine centre.
The four Kenyans thanked Athletics Kenya (AK) for paying their tickets from Bangalore where they had been stuck to Mumbai where they boarded a plane back to Kenya.
AK paid each flight ticket from Bangalore to Mumbai at Ksh15,000 and a further Ksh71,900 from Mumbai to Nairobi for each of the four athletes.
Gathoni in a phone interview with a local daily said that she is happy to be home again.
“I’m happy I’m back home. It is much better than being held in a foreign country where we were stranded. It was a very lonely experience,” said Gathoni.
Gathoni explained that they moved out of a hotel and rented rooms to survive.
“We rented rooms and cooked our own meals because we could not afford staying in hotel,” Gathoni added.
Gathoni was scheduled to participate in four races but only managed to participate in two of them. She came in second in the Guwati Half Marathon.
She said that after her arrival in India in February and a lengthy lockdown, all she could think about was her family in Nyahururu and hoped against hope that she would return soonest.
AK President Jack Tuwei said that he is aware that seven more athletes are still stuck in India promising to have then flown back to Kenya.
“We have made plans to bring them back home as there is another flight expected to leave India for Kenya in the coming days,” said Tuwei.
The seven runners were called upon by Willy Bett, Kenya’s High Commissioner to India to register with the embassy for evacuation and meet all set conditions to be evacuated.