{"id":33258,"date":"2021-08-10T14:06:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-10T14:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/?p=33258"},"modified":"2021-08-10T11:48:09","modified_gmt":"2021-08-10T11:48:09","slug":"akisa-happy-to-ditch-football-to-pursue-career-in-shot-put","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/akisa-happy-to-ditch-football-to-pursue-career-in-shot-put","title":{"rendered":"Akisa happy to ditch football to pursue career in shot put"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\">Kenya<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>Former Ulinzi Starlets defender Maureen Akisa believes a shot put medal at the upcoming World Under 20 Championships will be the perfect reward for quitting football in favour of the field event.<\/p>\n<p>Akisa will be the country&#8217;s sole representative in the women&#8217;s shot put during the biennial event set for August 17-22 on home soil at Moi Stadium, Kasarani.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have a passion for both sports, but my heart is in shot put hence I feel I can go far with the sport. I would like to make it one day to the podium,\u201dthe 19-year old from Busia county said.<\/p>\n<p>In the men&#8217;s division, Dominic Kiprotich will be gunning for his first medal in a sport he has invested much time in since his primary school days.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I started competing in the discipline back in 2015 while in primary school. My friend Nelson Yego challenged me to venture into the sports world. At first, I tried out javelin but my body did not respond to it. That\u2019s when I made a decision to try out shot put. In shot put, I went up to regional level. I did not advance very far because I lacked implements and a coach,&#8221; Kiprotich said.<\/p>\n<p>The 17-year old is currently training at the Moi Stadium, Kasarani and believes he only needs to brush up on certain aspects of his skills to get into a prime position for the podium.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Right now, my main focus is to work on the release and throw techniques,&#8221; the 17-year old from Kiberes Mixed Secondary School said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Kenya. Former Ulinzi Starlets defender Maureen Akisa believes a shot put medal at the upcoming World Under 20 Championships will be the perfect reward for quitting football in favour of the field event. Akisa will be the country&#8217;s sole representative in the women&#8217;s shot put during the biennial event set for August 17-22 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":33257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,17,16],"tags":[6857,7003,544],"class_list":["post-33258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-kenya","tag-kenya"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Akisa happy to ditch football to pursue career in shot put - kenya<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Former Ulinzi Starlets defender Maureen Akisa believes a shot put medal at the upcoming World Under 20 Championships wil ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/akisa-happy-to-ditch-football-to-pursue-career-in-shot-put\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Akisa happy to ditch football to pursue career in shot put\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former Ulinzi Starlets defender Maureen Akisa believes a shot put medal at the upcoming World Under 20 Championships wil ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/akisa-happy-to-ditch-football-to-pursue-career-in-shot-put\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"kenya\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-08-10T14:06:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sites\/28\/2021\/08\/img-6112676438e50.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"668\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/akisa-happy-to-ditch-football-to-pursue-career-in-shot-put#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/akisa-happy-to-ditch-football-to-pursue-career-in-shot-put\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Akisa happy to ditch football to pursue career in shot put\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-08-10T14:06:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/akisa-happy-to-ditch-football-to-pursue-career-in-shot-put\"},\"wordCount\":275,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/akisa-happy-to-ditch-football-to-pursue-career-in-shot-put#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sites\/28\/2021\/08\/img-6112676438e50.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Kenya\",\"Kenya\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"sport\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/akisa-happy-to-ditch-football-to-pursue-career-in-shot-put#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/akisa-happy-to-ditch-football-to-pursue-career-in-shot-put\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/akisa-happy-to-ditch-football-to-pursue-career-in-shot-put\",\"name\":\"Akisa happy to ditch football to pursue career in shot put - 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