Bare-knuckled plan
Kajiado County within the expansive Rift Valley region has over the years established itself as a motorsports hub.
It is famous for not only its car-breaking but picturesque Safari Rally competitive stages.
The Railway Crossing area has over the years served up great moments from world-beating rally drivers of yore among them Rauno Aaltonen, Shekhar Mehta, Vic Preston Jnr, Juha Kankkunen, Bjorn Waldegaard and Tommi Makinen, just to name but a few.
But the sporting story of this beautiful county doesn’t just end with motor sports as a group of boxing enthusiasts has been working around the clock to return Kajiado back to global limelight through “hooks and jabs”.
“In the next 10 years, I see Kajiado as the leading county producing boxing champions in Kenya.
I also see our local association -- Kajiado County Boxing Association -- being the leading administrators of the sport in the country,” said Mike Otieno, a pioneer boxer in Kajiado.
Otieno now is among the few coaches trying to make a difference in Kajiado’s ambitious boxing journey.
When the Boxing Federation of Kenya complied with the Sports Act of 2013 and held its historic election last year, Kajiado was among the county associations which was formed to enable the sport to spread its tentacles across the country.
“BFK President Anthony Ombok Jamal has been very supportive of our initiatives.
Our Association was registered in February 2020 and we have five clubs, namely, Ongata Rongai Boxing Club, Beasthouse Boxing Club, Lions Den Boxing Club, Ngong Boxing Club and Kajiado Boxing Club.
Currently, we have 110 boxers in our association. One of my notable boxers is welterweight Khal Gordon.
He is the Captain of South Sudan national boxing team and also my captain at Ongata Rongai Boxing Club. He is hoping to compete in the forthcoming Tokyo Olympics Games.
Despite these great efforts, challenges remain.
“We do not have enough boxing equipment and most of our clubs don’t have somewhere permanent to train.
Our coaches also need more training and exposure to get their coaching licences. We are in dire need of corporate sponsorship.
“Sponsorship will enable us to facilitate boxers to travel to tournaments to and from.
Our boxers also need some kind of formal or semi formal employment as most of them have nothing to do besides boxing,” added coach Otieno. The association recently unveiled its official website -- https://kcba.co.ke.
