IT IS not only Britain that is wringing its hands over its country's poor performance at the Olympic Games. The Kenyan Government has announced that it plans to set up an independent commission to determine why its athletes won only one gold medal in Atlanta, its worst return since 1984.

Several key members staged a five-hour sit-in at the airport baggage area when the Kenyan team arrived back in Nairobi on Saturday after they were told that they would have to pay duties on electrical equipment they purchased in the United States. They complained that customs officials were punishing them for the team's poor showing because in 1988 and 1992 duties were not required upon return.

Joseph Keter, the country's only Olympic champion, was among a number of Kenyan athletes who did not return home but instead went straight back onto the lucrative European Grand Prix circuit in Monte Carlo. He won the 3,000 metres steeple-chase in eight minutes 05.99 secs.

But it was two other Kenyan-born athletes who were not in Atlanta who made the biggest impression on the meeting. Daniel Komen, the 20-year-old who failed to qualify in his country's trials, missed Noureddine Morceli's world 3,000 metres record by just five-hundredths of a second as he ran 7:25.11, while Wolfson Kipketer, the adopted Dane who missed the Olympics because he refused to run for Kenya, won the 800 metres in 1:42.59.

Many of the competitors gave the impression of turning up for the francs and little else. Zurich, the richest meeting in the world with an annual athletes' budget of £6 million, and Cologne are two events preparing to take a stand against the spiralling appearance fees demanded by the top athletes