NAIROBI, Kenya, September 2 – National Tong Il Moo Do team captain Elvis Malipe is keeping his fingers crossed for a bigger and better edition of the Mombasa Open International Championships after this year’s leg failed to kick off.
Malipe says the exhibition matches held over the past weekend are a preview of what to expect at the main championships come December.
“We have had friendly matches among ourselves as the countries that had already arrived in preparation for the championships. These matches sort of set the stage for the main tournament, which will be possibly in December. We hope the friendlies entice as many participants as possible to come for the next edition,” he said.
The championships, in their 12th year, were scheduled for August 30-31 at the Aga Khan Hall but were cancelled at the last minute due to failure by the government – through the Ministry of Sports – to avail funds.
Before then, the two-day tournament had been pushed forward by a week as organisers continued to lobby for disbursement for funds.
Out of the 27 countries expected to participate, Turkey, United States, Burkina Faso, India, Nigeria and the hosts had already docked at the coastal city in readiness for battle.
The disappointment aside, Malipe said spirits among the participants were high with intense competition in the friendlies even without any incentives at hand.
“The teams had been training for the past week in preparation for the main championships. However, we have had this friendly, which has been equally intense. Other countries that were supposed to compete did not come because of the lack of funding but those that are here have acquainted themselves well,” he said.
The captain says the misfortune is a lesson learnt for the federation to make contingency plans in the future and avoid a recurrence of the same.
“The only thing is to plan well ahead of time and avoid such a situation arising again. We presented our request to the ministry on time but I don’t know what happened such that the funds could not be disbursed on time,” he said.
In some of the results of the friendly matches, Kenya’s Josephine Nyota emerged victorious in the female white belt forms competition with 7.00 points.
Fellow countrywomen Sevalyne Wekesa (6.50 points) and Sharon Kosgey (6.25 points) took second and third respectively.
India’s Erica de Squeria won the females black belt category with 8.50 points.
Joseph Ishimwe triumphed in the males’ white belt category with 7.7 points, ahead of Mathias Buluma (7.1 points) and Gideon Kingori (6.8 points) in second and third respectively.
