Philip Waruinge, one of the most accomplished boxers in Kenya’s history, has passed away.
Waruinge, the first African boxer to win the coveted Val Barker trophy at the 1968 Olympics, passed away early on Wednesday morning at his home in the Lanet neighbourhood on the outskirts of Nakuru City.
Mary Ndeti, Waruinge’s wife, praised him as a “loving and caring husband”
He’s been ill for a while now. She explained, “I have been taking him to the hospital and doctors had not established what was ailing him”.
According to Ndeti, her husband passed away at around 2 a.m. on Wednesday after a tough battle with an unspecified illness. Waruinge is survived by his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Isaac Mbote, first vice chair of the Kenyan Boxing Federation, said that Waruinge, who began his career in the late 1960s at Nakuru’s historic Madison Square Garden, had been ill.
“He has been in and out of the hospital but his conditioned worsened recently,” said Mbote.
To hear Mbote tell it, Waruinge was one of Kenya’s greatest boxers ever.
The name Waruinge will live on in history. When it came to boxing, he was up there with the best that Kenya had ever produced.