The Victories of Shujaa: Kenya’s Golden Hat in the Rugby Ring

Kenya has been a hotbed of athletic talent since time immemorial, flying the country’s flag high from event to event. The country has left a mark in many fields it has participated in.

In recent years the country’s sportsmen have ventured into field events like javelin and one Kenyan Julius Yego has not disappointed on that front. He is the African record and Commonwealth record holder for the event with a personal best of 92.72 metres.

The other great thing happening to the Kenyan sporting world is the Kenya Rugby 7s team. The team made its first appearance in 2001 and since then the Kenya Rugby 7s squad has never looked back.

The team competes in World Rugby 7s series, Rugby Series, Rugby World Cup Sevens and the commonwealth games.  They are currently one of the 15 “core teams” of the World Series, with a guaranteed place in all ten events each season.

The Kenya 7s team, also known as Shujaa, has a lot of memorable moments from their tournaments across the world.

Just a month ago Kenya 7s defied all odds to lift its first ever Main Cup title after smashing champions Fiji 30-7 in  Singapore tournament at the eighth round of the HSBC Sevens World Series.

It took the Shujaa 140 tournaments to break their duck and they are only the second African nation after South Africa to win a World Series leg.

The victory saw Shujaa collect 22 points, their highest ever to climb seventh on the overall standings on 85 points behind Argentina who are on 92.

The last time Kenya was in the Cup final was in 2013, when the team was under the leadership of Englishman Mike Friday after losing narrowly 24-19 to England in Wellington.

They say hard work pays and Kenya’s Record try scorer Collins Injera is now holds the all-time record for number of tries scored on the IRB Sevens World Series circuit with 235 a record previously held by Argentina  Santiago Gomez Cora at 230

Shujaa will also feature for the first time in this summer’s Olympics in Rio.

Article by Amina Mbuthia.