2015 produced mixed results for Rwanda. The national football team, Amavubi reached the Cecafa Challenge Cup final after many years while Team Rwanda triumphed in the Tour du Rwanda, However it is the number of deaths of sports stars that shocked the nation.

Times Sport’ Richard Bishumba looks back at the sports stars who died this year.

Jean-Marie Ntagwabira

Regarded as one of the best football managers the country has ever produced, Jean-Marie Ntagwabira succumbed to lung failure on the night of February 2, 2015 at Kanombe Military Hospital where he had been admitted for three weeks.

Born on July 11, 1973 in Bujumbura (Burundi), Ntagwabira started his professional career with Burundian side Vital’O in 1988 at the age of 15 before joining Rwanda Patriotic Army (RPA), now Rwanda Defense Forces (RDF) in 1990 to liberate the country.

Ntagwabira, a founding member of APR FC captained the side for nearly eight years until he retired in 2000 having won four league titles with the military side.

He won five league and two Peace Cup titles as APR coach in space of eight years, 2000-2004 and 2005-2008.

He also won the CECAFA Kagame Cup in 2004 with APR and the league title with now defunct Atraco FC in 2009.

In 2003, he helped APR reach semi-finals of Africa Confederation Cup, and the following year (2004), he led the army side to quarter finals of Orange Africa Champions League, the first time that a Rwandan side had reached that stage in the continental’s elite club competition.

Ntagwabira also served Amavubi assistant coach from 2001-2004 under Djukovic Ratomir when Rwanda made its historic maiden appearance at the 2004 AFCON in Tunisia.

Jean-Claude Gasigwa

Perhaps the most shocking death of all sports stars that passed on this year was Jean-Claude Gasigwa, who died suddenly on January 8 while training at Cercle Sportif de Kigali.

Widely regarded as the best tennis player in the country, Gasigwa was the country’s top seed for eight years since 2006. He got his maiden call-up in the national team in 2003 at the age 20 and never looked back ever since. He holds a record seven ITF/Money circuit titles won from 2006 to 2013.

Gasigwa also won regional competitions such as Kenya Open in 2008, Tanzania Open in 2011, and Uganda Open in 2009 and 2013 among others. In 2011, Gasigwa also represented the country at the 10th All Africa Games in Maputo, Mozambique.

Jean-Guy Rutayisire

After losing Gasigwa in January and Ntagwabira in February, a dark cloud also befell the basketball fraternity when Jean-Guy Rutayisire died in a fatal car accident on March 1 while travelling to Huye with his Kigali Basketball Club teammates for a league game against University of Rwanda (Huye campus). 

The accident that claimed a total of 5 lives and left many with critical injuries took place in Nkoto sector, Kamonyi district, and forced Kigali Basketball Club (KBC) to pull out of the Hoops league.

Rutayisire had previously played for Uganda’s most successful basketball club, Falcons between 2000-2005 before joining APR from 2005-2008, winning three league titles with the army side.

Anatalie Nirere

Death struck again in April when Inyemera women football Club’s Anatalie Nirere died on April 16 at CHUK hospital after a long battle with illness.

Nirere first rose to the limelight in 2008, when she was named in the national U-20 women’s team that traveled to Germany for a one residential boot camp and friendly matches before featuring for the same team in the women’s AFCON qualifiers in 2009.

Last year (2014), the midfielder was also named on the 36-player shortlist of She-Amavubi squad that played qualifiers of the 2014 AFCON staged in Namibia but she didn’t make it to final 18-player team. She had previously played for Musanze FC and APR women’s football club.

Yves Kabera Iryamukuru

Cycling youngster Yves Kabera Iryamukuru passed on during the Rwanda Cycling Cup race from Rubavu to Kigali after a car crash in Shyorongi in Rulindo District on October 25.

The 22-year-old cyclist died after a head-on collision with a coaster that was heading to the Northern Province. Although he was immediately rushed to CHUK for treatment, he passed away that same day.

The youthful rider had been a member of Fly Cycling Club for the past one year and was among the promising young cyclists striving to make it to the national team.

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