The Kenya Rugby Union (KRU) has made the decision to withdraw the men’s and women’s national rugby 7s teams from their final pre-Olympic tournament that was scheduled to take place this weekend in the United States of America.Shujaa and Lioness were to be part of the Quest for Gold Tournament in Los Angeles, USA but that will now not happen as KRU withdrew the teams’ participation citing concerns in player safety especially with the Olympics just days away.“The withdrawal has been occasioned by player safety concerns in light of the global Covid-19 pandemic. With the turnaround time for this tournament being too close to next month’s Olympic Games in Tokyo, we had to make the difficult decision of pulling the teams out of the competition,” the first part of the statement read.KRU Super week Gets Underway ahead of U20 Barthes Trophy https://t.co/3QgfFcJasq— Kenya Rugby (@OfficialKRU) June 25, 2021 “We are grateful to USA Rugby for extending this invitation and send our best wishes to all players, teams and personnel involved in the competition. We also look forward to playing in front of our U.S based fans during the Los Angeles leg of the HSBC Sevens World Series next March,” the statement added.The news comes just a week after the Uganda Cranes rugby team was withdrawn from an Olympic qualifying tournament after their players returned multiple positive tests for the Coronavirus.Before taking part in the Olympics that start on July 23, Shujaa were to join hosts USA, Great Britain, Argentina and Korea in the men’s category while Lionesses were scheduled to battle with the USA and Jamaica for a chance to gauge their preparation in the last tournament before the summer games.Following the cancellation of the trip, Shujaa and Lionesses will continue stepping up with their Olympic preparations at Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani where they have been camping for over three weeks.
