At Kenya’s Maasai Olympics, warriors swap lion hunt for high jumpThe number of lions in Kenya has plummeted from about 30,000 in the 1970s to little more than 2,000 today.Dozens of Maasai youths in Kenya have taken part in the fifth edition of the “Maasai Olympics”, a sporting event promoted by conservationists as an alternative to lion killing as a rite of passage for young warriors.The games, which included spear throwing, athletics and high jump, were held on Saturday in Kimana Sanctuary on the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, near Kenya’s border with Tanzania.First held in 2012, the games were created by Maasai leaders and the Big Life Foundation to replace the community’s “Olamayio” rite, which required boys to fight and kill a lion to prove their bravery and manhood.Saturday’s games included sprints of distances ranging from 100 metres to 5,000 metres (328-16,404 fee), and throwing events in which participants used the traditional wooden clubs, known as “rungus” and used to ward off hyenas, instead of discuses."