(Kimana) “Now I’m chasing medals, not lions”: for their fifth edition, the “Maasai Olympic Games” were organized on Saturday in southern Kenya to defend these wild animals threatened with extinction.
From generation to generation, Maasai warriors had to prove their virility by killing a lion. To preserve these felines, whose population in Kenya has grown from around 30,000 in the 1970s to just over 2,000 today, community leaders and the Big Life Foundation, an environmental organization , created in 2012 the “Maasai Olympic Games”. The goal: to replace hunting with sport.
To the rhythm of haunting traditional songs, dressed in colorful costumes, dozens of athletes are preparing for the various events.
The competition, held every two years, is held in the Kimana game reserve, about 200 kilometers south of the Kenyan capital Nairobi, near the border with Tanzania. The reserve is located near Amboseli National Park, overlooked by the snow-capped peaks of Kilimanjaro, the highest point in Africa.
These Maasai Olympics “are a way to preserve our lands”, underlines Joseph Lekatoo, 30, who has been participating in the competition since 2012. “Now I am chasing medals, not lions”, supports the young man, who has already won the javelin throw event.
More than 23,000 lions
“We learn a lot about animals […] and this competition brings together several communities (Massai, Editor’s note),” says Esther Sereya, 20, from the neighboring village of Rombo.
PHOTO THOMAS MUKOYA, REUTERS
Some 160 young Maasai, 120 men and 40 women, take part in the competition.
“There are only 23,000 lions left on the African continent and the number is falling,” said Tom Hill, co-founder of the Big Life foundation, to AFP. “We want to create with this event a model for the preservation of biodiversity in Africa”. The foundation has also set up a fund to compensate shepherds whose cattle have been attacked by lions. “It has kept lion hunting to almost zero,” boasts Tom Hill, who says that in the space of 10 years, the number of lions in the region has increased from “a few to around 250 “.
Some 160 young Maasai, 120 men and 40 women, take part in the competition. Alongside the “classic” racing events which see participants compete over distances ranging from 100 m to 5000 meters, certain competitions have been adapted to local customs: the “rangus”, wooden clubs intended to protect themselves from hyenas, in particular replace the discs in the throwing events.
In another revisited discipline, participants compete in a high jump test, where the goal is to leap to touch a rope with the top of his skull. This test reproduces “Adumu”, the famous jumping dance practiced by the Maasai during ceremonies.
” Protect ”
Since its inception, the event has been sponsored by David Rudisha, two-time Kenyan Olympic champion in the 800 meters, world record holder in the distance and himself a Maasai. “We are doing this competition for the conservation” of nature, David Rushisa told AFP.
The initiative is appreciated by the elders. “I killed two lions when I was young, one of them because he had killed one of my cows,” Lenkai Ole Ngola, a 66-year-old Maasai shepherd, told AFP in Swahili. “But today, it is important to protect them, because there were fewer and fewer of them. And also, the young people have jobs thanks to the animals, to tourism, so there is no longer any reason to kill them,” he argues.
The lions are threatened by poaching, but also by a drought of unprecedented intensity for 40 years which affects Kenya, an East African country renowned for the richness of its fauna, but also the entire Horn of the Africa. Following several failed rainy seasons, the land on the Kimana reserve is dry, with no tall grass in sight.
The winners of the various events do not receive medals, but heads of cattle – an important source of income for the Maasai –, school scholarships or money.