NAIROBI, Kenya, July 28, 2026 – Her career may be in its infancy but Kenya’s newest athletics star Diana Wanza is already thinking about the future of her daughter, who she hopes will follow in her footsteps.
The African 10,000m champion says she is ready to help her young one to become an athletics phenomenon — even more than her.
“I’m always there for her, you know. I know if she’s going to pursue this career, I’m there to help her. At least, she will have that foundation…if she wants to do it,” Wanza says.
The 27-year-old further divulges that her daughter is her biggest supporter, something attested to by the fact that the young one is never far from her mother at various athletics events in the country.
“She’s happy because even when you ask her, ‘where is mum?’ She says, ‘she’s gone for a walk, she’ll be back’. she knows what I do and I know she has watched this. She’s happy,” Wanza explains.
Wanza herself is a late bloomer in athletics, having spent a majority of her life pursuing formal education in search of a formal occupation.
Having quit the sport for a long time, the Kenyatta University graduate decided to revive her athletics talent, not knowing it would be the path that leads her to stardom.
She was walking — or rather, running — a path never-before trodden by any of her kinfolk.
“I started running while I was in primary high school. I went to campus but the support was not there much. The competition is not that high. After graduating, I decided to try this athletics thing because I knew I am talented but no one in the family, in the village have ever run. So I had to do that alone,” Wanza explains.
Path of prosperity
It is a path that has led her to Accra where she won the women’s 10,000m title at the African Championships in March, three months before it spurred her to the Commonwealth Games where she clinched silver in the same event.
Wanza clocked 31:50.13 to finish second, behind Australian Rose Davies who ran a season’s best of 31:39.32 to take gold.
Florence Niyonkuru of Rwanda bagged bronze after finishing third in 31:55.47.
Had she had a little bit of energy in the tank, Wanza could have been the new Commonwealth Games champion, having seemingly wrapped up the race with four laps to go.
As fate would have it, she withered away to allow Davies to capitalise and overtake her albeit she bravely held on for silver.
Reflecting on the race, Wanza does not have any regrets about breaking away from the rest of the pack in what some may have considered an amateurish strategy.
“I executed my race because, you know, many of the people you have to go with them until the last kick. But I decided to go with my own plan. When she passed me, I couldn’t give up. I really said in my mind, ‘you have to be strong,” she explained.
Notwithstanding the gold slipping from her grasp, Wanza is grateful to God for how far she has come in 2026.
“First of all, I thank God for this opportunity. Really, 2026 is a blessing for me. It’s a year I will really remember because it’s just a breakthrough for me in my athletics career,” she said.
Indeed, it is turning out to be a year in which she is not only making memories for herself but for her daughter who will one day want to be like the mum.
If she decides to become an athlete, Wanza’s daughter already has a lot working to her advantage — her mother’s athletics genes and experience of knowing the dos and don’ts of the game.
