Strathmore Blades over the weekend were crowned Champions of the Inaugural Sterling U23 Summit Cup held at the Nyayo National Gymnasium.
The Blades beat Zeteck Titans 46-37 to win the three day tournament that had attracted eight teams.
Amongst the teams that participated in the tournament include Kenyatta University, Strathmore University, Multimedia University of Kenya, University of Nairobi, Zetech University, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture Technology, Africa Nazarene University, and United States International University Africa.
The Chief Executive of Sterling Sports & Arts Inc Job Waka said that that the tournament was used empower, improve lifestyle and promote the development of children, youth and adults through sports.
Waka said the idea to focus on the U23 in this year’s contest was to give the university players within that age bracket a platform to showcase their talent.
The number of foreign participants was restricted to two so as to give Kenyans the chance to be scouted.
According to job allowing foreigners to compete with Kenyans has taken a toll on the countries national team as most of them represent their country of origin after graduating from our youth system.
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“South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi have been dominating our youth games at the expense of our own after wards they represent their countries and that’s why they have excelled more than us,” he said.
He urged the ministry of Sports to look into the matter saying that the school games national representative are always dominated by South Sudanese Nationals a country that now is ahead of Kenya in terms of ranking.
“In the nationals school games our regional Champions such as Nairobi’s Dagorretii High school, Western regions teams and others have a big number of Sudanese who have height advantage and more interest in the game thereby taking Kenyans’ opportunities,” he lamented.
Blades took home Sh100,000 while the first and second runners-up received Sh50,000 and Sh30,000 respectively.
The organizers seek to expand the tournament in other counties but rued lack of facilities to host the games across the country.
