Kenya has been earmarked as an amarture Wrestling development center across East Africa region after successfully hosting the inaugural East Africa Regional Development Tournament ( EAREDT) in Nairobi.
Confirming the news on Tuesday from her base in Switzerland, the Development Director at United World Wrestling ( UWW) Deqa Niamkey said that tapping raw talent among school going children in Kenya and East Africa was one of UWW’s agenda in developing Wrestling across the region.
” We had a wonderful five day event that culminated with two days of tough competition while in Kenya. We are going to add more events in the calendar for East African countries so that athletes can compete more than four times a year. Coaching courses will also be very essential as we have to pass knowledge to coaches who will inturn do the same to their clubs, ” said Deqa adding that together with her team, there are also plans that are geared towards helping young women wrestlers overcome their day to day challenges in third world countries as they focus on competitions with a keen interest of wooing the girl child to wrestling.
Kenya Armature Wrestling Association ( KAWA) Secretary General ( SG) Erick Walucho praised UWW for its efforts in supporting the sport in Kenya and across East Africa saying that efforts now will be shifted to formation of clubs, identifying and training school going children.
” We received 20,000 US dollars for the just concluded East Africa region wrestling championships from UWW in addition to having Deqa Niamkey the Development Director and also Vincent Aka who is the UWW Development Officer and a former world champion in wrestling, to come here and train us in several technical aspects of the game before overseeing the competition,” said Walucho who also agreed that KAWA will have a special place for the girl child and make Wrestling attractive to school going children aligning with Deqa’s vision of developing wrestling to all school going children.
The inaugural East Africa Regional Development Tournament ( EAREDT) attracted 150 athletes from six countries across the East Africa region in Nairobi and it’s success has now raised eye brows at the global Amarture Wrestling governing body with promises of more goodies that will stretch over a period of two more years and be pumped into training referees, coaches and players across the East Africa region with Kenya being the main center of it’s youth development agenda.
