Maasai Olympics in Kajiado, Kimana Conservancy are back with the event taking place on December 10.
The biannual public event games had been stopped in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Event organiser Samuel Kaanki from the Big Life Foundation said the games will be held in Kimana sanctuary.
The event is based on traditional Maasai skills that provide an alternative to lion killing for the warriors to compete for recognition, show bravery and leadership and impress admirers.
Kaanki said the event is about the hunt for medals, not lions.
He said the now internationally recognised Olympics was first conceived in 2008 when the cultural "fathers" of the new warrior generation went to the Big Life Foundation and asked them to help eliminate lion hunting from Maasai culture.
The inaugural event was in 2012 and it is now run bi-annually.
The Maasai Olympics represent a history-changing shift from killing to conservation.
Kaanki said the idea was to create an organised sports event based on traditional Maasai warrior skills to replace the long-held tradition of hunting lions as a mark of manhood, bravery, and prestige.
Every two years, participating villages select teams through a series of tournaments leading up to the finals across six categories: rungu (club) and javelin throwing, high jump, and 200m, 800m, and 5,000m races.
The idea of a culturally-relevant sports competition is conceived as a potential substitute for lion killing and a way for Maasai warriors to compete against each other for prestige in a new twist on traditional rites of passage.
Kaanki said the Big Life Foundation partnered with the Maasai of the Amboseli and Tsavo to raise funding for the first-ever Maasai Olympics,
Part of a larger initiative will help shift the attitude of the Maasai towards a commitment to wildlife and habitat conservation as a preferred way of life in the 21st century.
In 2012, the inaugural Maasai Olympics event was held in Kimana Sanctuary, where warriors from the entire ecosystem competed against each other in five events based on traditional Maasai warrior skills.
It is during that year, the Maasai two-time Olympic gold medalist and the 800-meter world record holder, David Rudisha, became a patron.
This biennial programme has since become an established part of the local Maasai culture and has taken place in 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018.
Most of the tourist hotels in Amboseli have been booked ahead of the event.
