Dennis Ombachi: How the Kenyan rugby player learned to live with bipolar

CNN
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In sport there is nothing more revered than scoring the winning points in the last minute, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. All of sports’ greatest matches have that moment which stick in fans’ forever. But not for Kenya rugby’s Dennis Ombachi.

When looking back at the try that he scored after the buzzer had gone, to send the Kenya Sevens team to the Olympics, he tells CNN Sport, “I really can’t remember much. What I remember is getting the hooter and hearing the coaches, the late Benjamin Ayimba [Kenya’s head coach] and the technical bench just screaming Omba, Omba!”

From inside his own 22, Ombachi handed off two Zimbabwe tackles before storming down the pitch to score the try that qualified Kenya for the inaugural Olympic Rugby Sevens event.

Ombachi would be a part of the Kenya team that went to Rio and rubbed shoulders with the greatest athletes in the world, becoming a regular with the team on the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series.

But at the height of his powers, the Kenyan star suffered a severe leg break, side-lining him for the best part of a year.

But it was Ombachi’s mental health that would take a bigger hit than his broken leg. Being forced to move home and with nothing to do but wait for his leg to heal, Ombachi struggled to cope and eventually attempted to take his own life.

“Bones and muscles eventually do heal. But what I really didn’t factor in was the mental toll that it was going to take on me and which dragged on, even up to now that I still suffer a bit from it,” Ombachi recalls.

Thanks to intervention from friends and family, Ombachi was hospitalized and finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a mental illness characterized by manic highs, depressive lows and possible periods of psychosis.

But Ombachi also remembers that what also helped him through that dark phase of life was his hobby, cooking.

The winger had always loved food and cooking, a hobby that benefited from a career that took him all over the world.

“My love of food is intertwined with playing rugby because it started when playing the HSBC legs, you tour close to 18 countries a year and all these countries, they have their own culture, languages and food. We used to eat different kind of foods,” Ombachi tells CNN Sport.

“I used to come back home and challenge myself to try and create some of the different dishes I had here and there. I think that’s how the passion grew.”

In particular, renowned chef Gordon Ramsay was an inspiration for the house-bound athlete.

“Through his YouTube channel I managed to understand the fundamentals, the principles and how to use your tastebuds,” said Ombachi.

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