The Federation Motors clubs of Uganda (FMU) officials accompanied by National Council of Sports (NCS) officials have today sent off three Ugandan representatives for two international events.
Motorcross rider Sharifah Kateete alongside rally crews of Yasin Nasser and Timothy Gawaya were flagged of to represent the country.
Kateete will be doing the FIM Oceania Women’s MX Cup in Australia as Yasin and Gawaya participate in WRC Kenya Safari Rally.
The two event will be run on the weekend of March 21st – 23rd in Australia and Kenya.
Kateete, who will be riding under a Kenyan license, is among the 6 African lady riders including Zambian Leah Heygate, Mienke Cawood, Zoe Botha and Ivana Venter all from South Africa alongside Kenyan Atete Benzinge who were selected from last year’s African Championship, Motocross of African Nations (MXoAN) in Morocco where they had a stellar performance.
“Am so happy to be part of the team to represent Africa. Am now looking forward to using this opportunity to inspire other Ugandan lady riders and to be a good example to future riders. Am fit and ready to make the machine roar,” says an excited Kateete while talking to Rora Media.
Kateete is expected to fly today to South Africa where she is to camp with fellow riders as they train ahead of the tournament.
On the other side, the 2019 and 2023 Uganda National Rally Champion, Yasin said that, “Its always a dream for someone to start a hobby and then go ahead and make a name out of it. For us since 2019 when we started the Ugandan championship winning points, we said sky was the limit and from there is where we started doing the ARC events not knowing that one day WRC will be played in Africa.”
“It’s been a long journey; we’ve gone through a lot but this time is a bit more special we’ve prepared to go out and enjoy ourselves properly. This WRC is going to be more challenging since we’ve not been able to finish in the past two events but we learnt through our mistakes and we are ready to go and raise the flag as we learn from the international drivers,” added Yasin.
The last time Yasin participated in this event was last year but didn’t finish following a dreadful exit as he saw all his efforts disappear when he rolled the Ford Fiesta rally2 in SS7, Kedong stage.
