Kenya women’s basketball team hires new coach
Kenyan women’s basketball appoint new coach
JOHANNESBURG, April 20 (ANA) – George Mayienga was appointed as the new coach of the Kenya women’s basketball team on Monday.
The 53-year-old tactician whose journey as a coach started in 1996 in the lakeside city of Kisumu, was appointed by the Kenya Basketball Federation (KBF) as the Lioness – as the Kenya women’s team is known – coach.
The team will train at the Nyayo National Stadium gymnasium on May 1 to start preparations for the 2021 FIBA Women’s AfroBasket (African Basketball Championship) Zone Five Qualifiers in June, after an introduction meeting at the same venue a day earlier.
Since their silver medal at the AfroBasket in 1992 and their participation at the 1994 Women’s Basketball World Cup, there has been little for the Kenyan women’s team in terms of achievements.
Mayienga who started his coaching career with a high school team – Kamukunji Secondary in 1996 and for the 10 years he was there, guided them to three national championships.
During that time, they also finished, runners-up five times and ended up third to complete an impressive scorecard.
He joined United States International University (USIU) Africa in 2004 and getting them off to just the start they needed as they immediately won the East Africa University Games in Nairobi.
At the same time he worked Laiser Hill Academy guiding them to the national school championships in 2008. He won it again a year later adding the regional crown to his cabinet before moving to Nairobi International School (NIS) in 2010.
His stars continued to shine as he won both the national and regional titles with NIS while continuing to build a strong basketball program at the institution.
Mayienga battled top guns like Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) and Eagle Wings in the national classic league. He managed to finished third 2011 before finishing runners-up in 2012 and 2013.
By finishing second in the league, he earned the tickets to the Africa Zone Five Club championships in Bujumbura, Burundi and Kigali Rwanda and Mombasa three times in a row.
From 2013 Mayienga also took USIU to four straight continental club championships in Morocco, Tunisia, Angola and Mozambique where he battled against Africa’s best.
The showdown in Luanda will also remain etched in his mind forever as one of his key players centre Zainab Sarah Chan Luol was named among the top five performers in the tournament.
Mayienga gained so much exposure playing both in the region and the continent as this resulted in him winning the national league crowns in 2015 and 2016.
He rejoined Laiser Hill in 2017 and again won the national schools championships. He repeated the feat a year latter before deciding to move to Kampala, Uganda in 2020 to join LSK Dolphins.
Mayienda told Fiba.basketball he is ready for the task ahead and has his work cut out for him when he returns to Nairobi to start his new assignment.
But before he returns Kenya to an African podium, he must first navigate the tricky Zone Five waters that include debutants Southern Sudan and perennial rivals Egypt and Uganda. – African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Michael Sherman
