Record 42 countries to grace Mombasa Open Tong-IL Moo-Do Champs

Kenya's team Jasiri, which has been tormenting opponents for years, will be going flat out to retain the overall title for the eleventh year in a row.

At last year's event also held at the Aga Khan Academy, Kenya won a total of 185 medals; 46 gold, 54 silver and 18 bronze.

Addressing the media on Wednesday, Tong-Il-Moo-Do Federation of Kenya president Clarence Mwakio said that they are in the final touches of preparations towards the annual event.

"Jasiri are ready for the event and we are geared towards winning more medals for our country than last year where we managed the top spot despite the many challenges".

Last year, the 10th edition was most affected by lack of funding from the government after the general election and change of guard in what the federation termed as fake promises.

"We had much support from the government in the last 9 years, but last year we had many setbacks although we managed to host the annual event.

"We have held several meetings with the CS Ababu Namwamba and we are confident the Ministry of Sports will  take care of the pending bill and allowances for our Kenyan team, Jasiiri", said Mwakio.

Mwakio, who also doubles up as the  sport Africa president, confirmed  this year's event  budget as Sh. 589 Million but part of it will be settled by the World Tong-Il-Moo-Do Federation calling upon the government to offer them financial support.

"We sent a request at the end of last year and a reminder in July  this year for support to host the international event, and a month to the event there is no response  but we are hopeful they will honor their promise".

The federation has also called out the ministry for saying they would only fund key sports events saying the government should have equity towards sports funding.

"As we all know there is a very big problem in the country in terms of sports because there is classification of sports federations, bigger sports versus smaller sports, we wish to request to be treated fairly and equally. Those are referred to as bigger sports. We believe that they should be more self sustainable but unfortunately the current situation is those bigger sports are the one taking the largest allocation of sports funds".

Among the countries that have confirmed participation in this year's edition are South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Cambodia, Nigeria, Congo, DRC , Angola, Ethiopia, Turkey, Iran, Brazil among others.