Nairobi emerge overall 2017 KICOSCA and CASA champions

Nairobi County starred most as the week-long Kenya Inter-counties Sports and Cultural Association (KICOSCA) and the County Assembly Sports Association (CASA) fifth edition came to an end on Saturday at the Machakos Kenyatta Stadium.

Nairobi won 13 disciplines out of possible 19, and will hence contribute bigly in Kenya’s team for the East Africa Local Assemblies and Cultural Association Championships (EALACA) slated for December.

A total of 35 counties out of 47 participated, compared to the 2016 and fourth edition where only 30 took part in Thika, Kiambu County.

According to the event Organizing Secretary Ken Gakuru, there was significant improvement in this year’s edition in terms of competition and attendance.

“It was a big event and we thank the local administration for making it a success. This year it was very competitive and that’s why we had many cases of unsatisfied teams appealing in different disciplines, Gakuru offered.

With the 2016 men football champions Kisii County crashing out in the preliminaries, hosts Machakos eased past Busia in Semi finals before thrashing Nairobi 3-0 in the final.

Uasin Gishu County clinched the volleyball and athletics titles. They overcame Nakuru with 3-1 sets in volleyball, the latter finishing second in the discipline for the fourth time in a row.

Nakuru’s head coach Daniel Kamau blamed the age factor for the loss, noting some fresh blood in the squad would add the mettle needed to finally win the trophy.

“We have been finishing second in volleyball since inception of KICOSCA and our team is getting old. The major reason we lost to Uasin Gishu is because in the fourth set we were tired, and we couldn’t match their youthful squad,” opined Kamau.

Uasin Gishu Queens also ruled the Women KICOSCA volleyball final, edging Kericho by 3-0 sets.

The county, famous for wealth of athletics talents, defended their athletics title scooping 138 medals.

Narok was satisfied with the overall runners up position, an improvement from 2016 where they finished third, with Kisumu taking the second runners up for the first time.

KICOSCA/CASA organizers will now embark to the selection exercise of the teams which will represent Kenya in EALACA, set for Kampala, Uganda between December 11 to 16.