GABORONE, May 27 (Xinhua) -- The Kenyan women rugby sevens team were crowned champions of the Rugby Africa Women sevens tournament in Botswana capital Gaborone after beating Uganda 29-7 on Monday.
The finals were preceded by fierce two-day tournament that saw the top ten ranked African countries battle it out for honors in the southern African country.
Kenya emerged early favorites to win the tournament in the absence of another rugby powerhouse, South Africa, who are preparing for the Rugby Sevens world cup to be played in San Francisco in July.
They eased to two victories with large margins on the first day of the tournament on Saturday, beating Senegal 41-0 and Madagascar 42-0 to send an early message to their fellow competitors.
They then went on to beat Zambia 43-7 in the cup quarterfinals before crushing Madagascar 27-0 in the semifinals to set up a final with Uganda.
Meanwhile, the host nation also dished out a couple of good performances to improve their ranking in the region to seventh after spending years without playing any competition in the continent.
Botswana beat Mauritius 15-10 in their first match on Saturday before being held to a 1-1 draw by Zambia later on the day.
The second day proved to be difficult for the home side as they lost two consecutive matches against Tunisia and Senegal respectively, but they bounced back to beat Zambia 17-5 in the ranking for seventh and eighth place.
Rugby Africa president Abdelaziz Bougja congratulated all the teams that competed in the tournament for a good show, saying women's rugby has grown tremendously on the African continent over the past few years.
The tournament concluded a week of activities dedicated to women's rugby in Africa after a three-day conference on women's rugby development, also hosted by Botswana.
