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Tennis coach Rosemary Owino is among five top tacticians who will be battling for the Coach of the Year honours during the Safaricom Sports Personality of the Year Awards gala set for January 11 in Mombasa County.
Owino will be up against Kenya Lionesses coach Kevin ‘Bling’ Wambua, Telkom hockey team coach Jos Openda, KCB rugby coach Curtis Olago and Kenya Prisons women’s volleyball team coach Josp Barasa. The Soya awards, which have been co-sponsored by Mombasa County, National Social Security Fund, Communication Authority, Kenya Pipeline, Kenya Power, Lap-Fund, New KCC, Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), GOtv and Protel Studios will be held at the historical Fort Jesus site.
Owino guided Kenya’s team back to Davis Cup Euro/Africa Group II Championship after 13 years and hopes to ride on this honours to scoop the top award.
Owino led Kenya’s Ismael Changawa and Ibrahim Kibet in beating top seeded Benin pair of Alexis Klegou and Felix Hounkpevi to win title at the Nairobi Club last June,.
Owino also led Sheil Kotecha in beating Delmas N’Tcha also of Benin 6-4, 6-4. On his part, Wambua guided the Kenya Lionesses to their first ever Africa 7s title.
‘Bling’ as he is popularly known, led the Kenya girls in lifting the Rugby Africa Women’s Sevens Trophy in Gaborone, Botswana in May with a 29-7 win over Uganda in the final.
He also steered Lionesses to the Cup semi-finals of the women’s World Series qualifiers in Hong Kong in April where Kenya beat South Africa for the first time.
Wambua also led the Lionesses to a sixth place finish at the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia also in April. Telkom hockey team coach Openda, who has won the coveted award before will be hoping to bag it once again after a good outing in 2018. Openda once again led his charges in bagging the Kenya Hockey Union league title after an unbeaten run. Openda also reclaimed the Africa Cup of Club Championships in Abuja, Nigeria.
Olago led KCB RFC to defending the Kenya Cup, this time lifting it unbeaten. The bankers also defended the Enterprise Cup and finished third overall in the 2018 National Sevens Series.
On his part, Barasa led Kenya Prisons in reclaiming the Kenya Volleyball Federation league title from rivals Kenya Pipeline. After four years of near misses, Barasa finally masterminded the triumph at the national play-offs in December at Kasarani with his team winning all three matches.
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