Skaters from Kimisagara-based Rwanda Hope Club of Skate Style returned to Kigali with the highest number of medals after emerging overall winners of the 2023 Genocide Memorial Skating tournament (GMT) that concluded in Musanze town over the weekend. The tournament is organised annually as part of honoring over a million of victims killed during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. This year’s edition was held in the streets of Musanze on Saturday as skaters, men and women, gathered in the town vying for medals both in inline speed skating and free style categories. Rwanda Hope Club of Skate Style won a total of eight medals out of a possible 10 that were up for grabs. They include two medals in men’s inline speed skating 25km, two in men’s freestyle category, three in women’s inline speed skating and one and only medal that was contested for in women’s freestyle category. In men’s inline speed skating (25 km), Musanze Skating club’s Fabrice Ndihokubwayo struck gold, overcoming stiff competition from Rwanda Hope club’s Musa Mugisha and Jean de Dieu Byukusenge who completed the top three podium in second and third place respectively. In men’s freestyle category, Byukusenge struck gold, ahead of second placed Ndihokubwayo of Musanze club. Byukusenge's teammate Mugisha came in third to take hoe bronze. In women’s category, German Hanna Wacheter of Rwanda Hope Club emerged winner of the inline speed skating 12.5km to strike gold ahead of her teammates Lilly Querfurth and Clementine Imanishiwe who finished in second and third to bag silver and bronze medals. Meanwhile, Querfurth won her second medal of the day after emerging as the lone winner in the women’s freestyle category to win gold. While the tournament attracted skaters representing three teams, only two teams namely Rwanda Hope Club and Musanze Skating Club managed to win medals, with Rwanda Hope Club emerging overall winners, taking home the trophy besides the medals.
