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The women’s senior national football team Harambee Starlets are among teams in the race for the 2025 Sports Personality of the Year Awards (Soya).
After a year of success, five teams made the final shortlist and are now waiting with bated breath for Friday night’s 2025 Soya gala where winners will be feted at Uhuru Gardens.
Starlets had a remarkable year, securing a return to the continental stage and excelling in other regional competitions.
Qualifying for the 2026 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) was a defining achievement for Starlets as they ended their 10-year long wait to play on the African stage.
Under coach Beldine Odemba’s guidance, Starlets defeated The Gambia 4-1 on aggregate to book their slot for a second Wafcon appearance having made their debut in 2016.
A place at Wafcon keeps Starlets in the race for a ticket to the 2027 Fifa Women’s World Cup since reaching the semi-finals will earn them a direct ticket to Brazil for the global showpiece.
Odemba’s charges were also dominant throughout the 2025 Cecafa tournament held in June in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. They bagged silver after a narrow 1-0 final defeat to the hosts Tanzania.
Other nominees are the Under-20 women national volleyball team Junior Malkia Strikers and Kenya Lionesses. Junior Strikers shocked hosts Cameroon in the final to win the 2025 CAVB Women’s Under 20 African Nations Championship.
They beat Cameroon 3-1 (26-24, 25-19, 26-28, 25-15) to win their maiden title. The win in Cameroon secured Kenya a slot at the FIVB Women’s Under-21 World Championship in 2026.
The Lionesses on the other hand won the 2025 World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series to qualify for promotion and relegation play-off where they also won.
Victory should have seen Kenya Lionesses qualify for the World Rugby Women’s Sevens series for the first time but World Rugby changed the format. Kenya Ports Authority women’s basketball team and the national women hockey teams complete the list of the five nominees for the women teams of the year.
In the men’s category, two teams enter the nominations with an aura of invincibility. Kabras Sugar RFC continued their stranglehold on Kenyan rugby, securing their fourth successive Kenya Cup and fifth consecutive Enterprise Cup. Their 41-match winning streak is a feat of modern sporting endurance.
Not to be outdone, Nairobi City Thunder electrified the courts. They defended their Kenya Basketball League title with a perfect 21-0 record and dominated the Basketball Africa League (BAL) Elite 16 East Division unbeaten. While their BAL debut saw them exit in the pool stage, their domestic and regional dominance remains unmatched.
Another nominee, Nairobi United (The Naibois) pulled off the “Double” of a lifetime. Not only did they win the National Super League to earn top-flight promotion, but they also stunned the nation by lifting the FKF Cup against Gor Mahia.
Their fairytale continued onto the continental stage, where they reached the CAF Confederation Cup Group Stages in their debut season.
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Junior Wafalme Stars (U-20 Volleyball) proved that Kenyan men can thrive on the net. By winning bronze in Cairo, they secured the first-ever podium finish for a Kenyan men’s junior team at the African Championships.
The national football team, Harambee Stars, earned their nod through a clinical group stage performance in the Chan tournament held in Nairobi. Topping a “Group of Death” that included heavyweights Morocco and DRC, they showed a defensive grit that hasn’t been seen in years, eventually falling only on the heartbreak of penalties in the quarter-finals.
