Kenya confident ahead of inaugural East Africa Amateur Wrestling Championships

The first-ever East Africa Amateur Wrestling Championships has been slated for between July 6 and 7, 2024, at the Sports View Hotel, Kasarani and Strathmore University, Nairobi.

Kenya Amateur Wrestling Association (KAWA) Secretary General Erick Walucho, said six countries will battle it out for the regional's supremacy in freestyle wrestling on Saturday and beach wrestling on Sunday.

“150 wrestlers from six countries are here already training for this weekend's showdown, where we will have freestyle wrestling at Sports View Hotel on Saturday and beach wrestling at Strathmore university on Sunday. Our young ones also will compete in the under 15, 17 and 20 categories and then we will have the seniors,” said Walucho.

The regional showpiece event will be graced by Vincent Aka, the United World Wrestling (UWW) Development Officer in charge of Africa.

“Kenya is a beautiful place with amazing athletes in wrestling, so far what I have seen here is great. This event also sends a statement to the rest of Africa as we all yearn to develop wrestling and vie for gold medals in international competitions such as the Olympics,” said Aka, who hails from Ivory Coast.

He promised to be visiting Kenya more often as the world wrestling governing body is now interested in developing wrestling in Kenya and across East Africa in general.

Hosts Kenya will battle it out with neighbors Uganda and Tanzania, as Burundi, Mauritius and Sudan are the other countries seeking the regional's top honors in amateur wrestling.

KAWA has also confirmed that notable continental stars will grace the event led by Uganda's Harriet Akite, who won a gold medal in the second edition of the National Olympics Committee of Kenya (NOC-K) beach games held at the Buntwani Beach, Malindi in February.

Another notable name will be African champion Kanapetradu vihanshy Simran from Mauritius and African silver medalist Niyonkuru Gloria Lynca from Burundi.

KAWA has also tasked  Linus Masheti to be now the Technical Director of both the men's and the women's national teams, and the veteran coach has now promised that the final squads to represent Kenya in all categories will be named on Wednesday.