Volleyball doyen Lungaho talks up Malkia chances at African Games

Despite being pooled in a tough group in the forthcoming Africa Games, the national women’s volleyball team, Malkia Strikers, still have a great chance of defending her title won four years ago in Congo, Brazzaville, team’s technical director David Lung’aho believes.

Malkia strikers will renew their rivalry with Cameroon at the Games barely one month after the West Africans denied Kenya a record tenth extending African Women Championship title after landing in the same group ahead of the competition which starts on August 19-31 in Rabat, Morocco.

According to Kenya Volleyball Federation technical director David Lung’aho, the draw released by the African Volleyball Confederation on Tuesday, pitting Malkia Strikers alongside the African champions Senegal and Algeria in Group ‘B’, will not be easy for any team in that group.

“It’s a tough pool, this is the group of death with the three best teams in Africa, we are looking forward to emerging the winners so as to get an easy opponent in the semi finals,” Lungaho told Citizen Digital.

Kenya, a four- time African games women’s volleyball champions easily defeated the current African champions Cameroon 3-1 to win in the 2015 games in Brazaville and Lung’aho believes Malkia strikers will reign supreme.

“We are in camp because we are not taking it lightly, everyone knows the three best teams in the tournament are in the same group, despite the performance in Italy last weekend, this is going to be different,” he added.

Malkia strikers, a nine-time Africa champions jetted back to the country Tuesday from Italy after falling short in the Inter-continental Olympic Games qualifiers held in Catania, Italy, where they did not record a single win losing all matches on straight sets against world-beaters Italy, Netherlands and Belgium.

In the other pool, hosts Morocco will start their quest against Botswana, Mauritius and Nigeria.