Crossan and Woods win wife carrying race at Watamu Sports Festival
By Harrison Kivisu and Webster Nyandika
It was fan and thrills for competitors and sports enthusiasts during this year’s edition of the Watamu Sports Festival that was held in Kilifi at the weekend.
After the dust settled following three days of intense action, three athletes earned qualification to take part at the elite international duathlon race to be held in Amsterdam, Netherlands next year.
Sudi Hassan, world junior duathlon champion Kennedy Ochieng 23 and Gideon Ruto managed to meet the International Triathlon Union Multisport world championship standards during the competition.
The duathlon was part of many events that was competed in as more than 150 participants turned up for action.
Ochieng won the only gold medal for the country in the previous world championships and will now be in the elite athletes competition which is considered to be the toughest.
Kenya has 100 slots out of the 5000 athletes who will be taking part in the International Triathlon world championships which will be held between November 4 and 13.
The wife carrying competition that saw participants race over a 400m obstacle course saw Jerry Crossan and Emily Woods reign supreme, beating a field of more than 60 competitors.
The organizers awarded winners in the different categories with cash on the top three winners who made away with Sh 10,000, Sh 5,000 and Sh 3,000 respectively.
Organizers of Watamu Multisport which is part of the Watamu Sports festival sponsored by Turtle bay, Triathlon Kenya and Runners point chose the Watamu area because of the conducive environment and also as part of promoting sports tourism.
Event organiser Kelvin Onyango said the aim of organizing the unique competition was aimed at promoting local tourism through sports. ‘’We are happy to have brought this event to Watamu. Its good for tourism promotion and at the same time creating opportunities for those talented in various sports disciplines,’’ he said.
