Kenyan volleyball girls overcome arch-rivals Algeria

BRAZZAVILLE

Youngsters Violet Makuto and Joy Lusemeka played vital role in helping Kenya register an emphatic 3-1 victory over bitter rivals Algeria in their first match of the All Africa Games at the Henre Elende gymnasium here in Brazzavile.

The Algerians, like Kenya, fielded a weakened team with a majority of the senior players involved in the ongoing FIVB women’s World Cup in Japan.

But the North Africans started strongly against Kenya’s starting line up of setter Rose Magoi, Gaudencia Makokha, Edith Mukuvilani, captain Loise Chepkosgei and Judith Tarus winning the first set 25-23.

The Algerians carried the momentum in the second set as they took an early 8-3 lead forcing Kenya’s coach Paul Gitau to change tact by resting Magoi, Makokha and Chepkosgei and introduce Joy Luseneka, Esther Mwombe and Violet Makuto in their places.

The changes yielded immediate result as Kenya turned around the set with a 25-19 score. The third set saw Mukuvilani and Leonida Kasaya step up their game complemented by the efforts of Makuto, Mwombe and Tarus as the team went to win the set 25-15 before wrapping up the match with a 25-23 fourth set victory.

“We lost a record eight services in the first set and this did us in but a change of players definitely gave us a new lease of life,” coach Gitau said of the game which lasted one hour and forty five minutes.

FIXTURES CHANGED

Meanwhile, the games organising committee seems to have been caught unawares by this year’s championship whose organisation has been shambolic so far.

Three days into the championship which kicked off on Tuesday with action in volleyball, fencing and badminton, and the organisers are yet to issue an official programme of the other events being competed for.

Volleyball fixtures have had to be changed twice to accommodate teams that had not reported or arrived late while boxing action, which was to start today, has been shelved with no official statement being issued on when the action will begin. Accreditation of teams and officials is also being done manually and seems to be taking ages.

Apart from yours truly, who had to arrange for his own accommodation upon arrival on Monday, no other member of the Kenya team has an accreditation badge. The same case applies for teams from other countries.

Services of meals is also very slow with the organising committee not even thinking of opening more serving points to speed up the process.

In addition, the venues are far apart. This coupled with language barrier makes movement extremely difficult for visiting teams, officials and journalists. 

So far, no official media centre has been set up with scribes having to find for their own means of filing stories.