LETLHOGILE MPUANG
The Botswana men’s volleyball national is in Egypt in search of their maiden World Championships qualification at the ongoing African Volleyball senior championships hosted in Cairo.
This competition which has been held since 1967, and is hosted after every two years has had only four previous winners down the years, Tunisia (winners on eight occasion), Egypt (winners on eight occasions), Algeria (winners on two occasions) and Cameroon (winners on two association). Following a Confederation Africaine De Volleyball (CAVB) board of Administration meeting in May, a decision was taken to merge the 2017 Men’s African Volleyball Championships and the 2018 FIVB World Championship Continental Qualifiers.
This meant that top three teams from amongst the teams, who had registered with Federation of International Volleyball for the 2018 World Championship, will qualify to represent Africa in the World Championship in Italy and Bulgaria.
The team left last week Wednesday for Cairo with a team of fourteen (14) players to take part in the Championship which began on Sunday. Botswana will be looking to improve at this particular tournament, as they finished seventh (7th, their highest finish at this games) in the last competition hosted in 2015.
The country has been drawn against Algeria, Rwanda and Chad. They played their opening game against group favourites Algeria on Sunday, but lost 3-0. Team BW will look to turn the corner with the two remaining group fixtures in order to make it to the next round. Meanwhile, the Women’s national volleyball team returned home this past week from a similar competition, and were only able to finish eighth (8th) from nine competing nations.