Rwanda and Egypt have booked their tickets to the 2024 Paris Paralympic games after they beat their opponents in the finals of the African Zone Sitting Volleyball Championship in Lagos, Nigeria.
Three time African champions, Rwanda, showed superiority from start to finish to defeat Kenya 3-0 (25-12, 25-18, 23-19) in the women’s category and clinch a record fourth title.
The win means the East Africans will again represent the continent in the women’s sitting Volleyball event at the summer Paralympics starting in August.
With the ticket to Paris, Rwanda women will be making their third consecutive appearance in the Paralympic Games, after representing Africa in Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020.
This time, Coach Mossad Rashad says the team’s focus will be to win a medal at the Games.
Coach Rashad said “I’m going to prepare my team well, we will not go there just to play, we are going to fight to get a good place in Paris. My team has the ability to do something very well in Paris.
Rwanda men’s team will however not be in Paris after failing to win the ticket from the men’s event following a 3-2 set semifinal loss to Morocco.
But they were consoled by a third place finish with a 3-0 (25-18, 25-12, 25-16) win against Algeria in the classification game.
Egypt won the event to clinch a record 10th African title with a 3-0 (25-13, 25-11, 25-16) triumph against Morocco, and kept their unbeaten run in the tournament intact.
Hosts, Nigeria finished last in both the men’s and women’s event. While the men placed 7th out of 7 teams, the women were third out of three teams that participated.
Despite the results, the President Nigeria Para Volleyball Federation, Kayode Ladele is happy with the performance, while expressing optimism that Nigeria will greatly improve by the next Paralympics.
Ladele said “You cannot buy experience, other teams have been there for more than 10 years but we just started last year. One of the coaches of the invited countries has said that for first timers (Nigeria) to play and win about two sets in the tournament shows that they are a country to watch. So, we are a country to watch. I believe in the next Paralympics we are going to pull a force”.
Two Nigerian made the list of top seven women players of the tournament with three from Rwanda and two from Kenya.
Three Egyptians, three Morrocans and a Rwandan make up the top men players list.
The 2024 Paralympic Games will take place in Paris, France, from August 28 to September 8.
Comments are closed.