Benjamin Ayimba was a Kenyan rugby player who later went on to coach the national rugby sevens team. Ayimba began his rugby union career with Nondescripts in Nairobi in 2002 before moving to England in 2003 to play for the Cornish Pirates until 2005. At an international level he played rugby sevens for Kenya at three editions of the Commonwealth Games (1998, 2002, 2006), and two editions of the Rugby Sevens World Cup (2001, 2005). After his playing career Ayimba spent two spells as the coach of the Kenyan national rugby sevens team, with the first lasting from 2006 to 2011. During this time he won the Coach of the Year award at the 2009 Kenyan Sports Personality of the Year ceremony. His second spell was from 2015 to 2016 with Ayimba coaching Kenya’s rugby sevens team at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. He died in May 2021 at the age of 44 after battling cerebral malaria.
Kenya