Things are heating up in the Maasai Olympic
Posted by Jeremy Goss in African Innovation, Conservation, Culture, People — 2 Comments. Article from the Africa Geographic.
Posted: December 4, 2014
In East Africa, lion killing has long been central to the culture of Maasai pastoralists. But reality is changing, and sometimes cultures need to change with it. In the Amboseli ecosystem of southern Kenya a number of partners, led by Big Life Foundation, have come up with an innovative education program to facilitate this change, for the good of people and wildlife.
The result is the Maasai Olympics, a biannual sports competition first held in 2012. This series of events is intended to provide young men with an outlet for demonstrating physical prowess and leadership, where previously this was achieved through killing lions. It also provides a forum to engage and educate these young men and their communities on conservation issues.
The Maasai Olympics events draw spectators great and small, all of whom learn about conservation.
Despite these core goals, the Maasai Olympics is a sports competition just like any other, with close finishes, memorable victories, and spectacular athletic displays. There are six events, all culturally relevant to the Maasai. These include 200m, 800m and 5km runs, as well as the rungu (club) throw, javelin (spear) throw and standing high-jump.
The track events have been hotly contested, and the officials have been under pressure without the luxury of slow-motion replays! The 800m run, missing in the 2012 event, has been included in honour of the local patron of the Maasai Olympics, Kenyan 800m Olympic gold medal winner David Rudisha.
The sports events have been kept culturally relevant.
And there is much at stake; the winner of both the final 800m and 5km races will receive paid trips to run the New York marathon in 2015, kindly facilitated by Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust. Coming from the dusty plains of Maasai land, this is an unimaginable experience.
One particularly close 5km race saw Luka Suyianga and Philip Morinka, both favourites for Olympic day, dropping the rest of the field early and racing neck and neck round the dusty track. As the race went on the crowd grew; there was nothing to separate the runners and the finish was going to be special. Morinka craftily hung back on the heels of Suyianga all the way into the last 400m. Suyianga tried to shake him with a burst of speed but Morinka snuck past in the last 100m to a cheering crowd, winning by 0.1s.
The javelin throw is an extension of the Maasai warrior use of long spears.
The rungu throw and javelin are always crowd pleasers, but the finale and highlight of each event has been the standing high-jump. The warriors crowd around the measuring posts and the chanting begins. One after another the men take turns at jumping from a standing position, in traditional Maasai style, the goal being to touch a string with their heads. We have already seen the 2012 winning height beaten in the regionals, and this event will be a fitting conclusion to the day of finals.
A warrior soars through the air in the standing high-jump event.
The four warrior villages (or manyattas) from around the ecosystem have now completed the round-robin style competition, where each team plays each other once. These regional competitions have been fierce, and the excitement is growing ahead of the final. Not only are these young men demonstrating that competition can take place through sport rather than killing lions, but we are seeing some truly remarkable athletic performances. With a couple of Kenyan national olympians sure to be on the sideline come 13 December, we cannot help but wonder if any future stars will be competing in front of them. We look forward to finding out.