African teams need to prepare better for FIVB Challenger Cup

Malkia Strikers have begun preparations for the upcoming FIVB Challenger Cup and CAVB Africa Nations Championship as they await processing of their travel documents.

Kenya is set to camp in Morocco for at least three weeks to prepare for the FIVB Challenger Cup set for July 27 to 30 in France. Afterwards, the team will travel to Cameroon for the continental competition scheduled for August 6 to 18.

The two competitions are key to Kenya’s qualification to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games with only one slot reserved for Africa through the principle of universality.

Kenya needs to acquire as many ranking points as possible to maintain top spot in Africa on the FIVB rankings come next year.

FIVB Challenger Cup is a qualifying tournament for the lucrative Volleyball Nations League (VNL) and the winner will qualify for VNL 2024. Since the VNL began in 2018, no African country has played in the women’s competition.

Therefore, Kenya will be out to make history in France by becoming the first African women’s team to qualify for the VNL. But it will certainly not be a walk in the park for Kenya given the calibre of their opponents.

A closer look at the countries which have qualified so far namely Colombia, hosts France, Puerto Rico and Vietnam gives an indication that Kenya will be up against teams that are already active in this window for national team competitions.

For instance, Vietnam only qualified last week after beating Indonesia in the final of the AVC Challenge Cup. Similarly, Puerto Rico qualified after winning the NORCECA Women’s Final Four tournament earlier this month.

These two qualifying tournaments have helped Puerto Rico and Vietnam get into competition shape ahead of the FIVB Challenger Cup which gives them a slight advantage over Kenya who have just started their preparations.

There is need for CAVB to start a similar qualifying tournament for African countries which will help our representative at the FIVB Challenger Cup get some match fitness before taking on other countries in the crucial event.

With the FIVB World Championship now being held bi-annually, this tournament will also be of great benefit to the top ranked African nations as it would allow coaches to test some young and upcoming players ahead of the big competitions such as African Nations Championship and World Championship.

According to the Challenger Cup format, Kenya is likely to face France in the quarter-finals since it’s ranked lowest among the countries that have qualified so far.

Since it’s uncertain how long the visas to France will take to be processed, it’s important that Kenya Volleyball Federation, National Olympic Committee of Kenya and Ministry of Sports take it upon themselves to upgrade the team’s preparations to residential training so that the players can fully focus on the huge task at hand.

Ideally, Kenya will be hunting for ranking points in France therefore it’s crucial that they go past the first hurdle in order to play at least two matches at the FIVB Challenger Cup.

Playing at least three friendly matches in Morocco will give head coach Luizomar de Moura a clear picture of his team ahead of the France event.

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