Botswana Finish Seventh In African Volleyball

MOSAH MOKGANEDI
Correspondent | Monday September 17, 2007 00:00

On arrival team captain Dipolelo Nkele said the competition was tough and they needed more exposure before going to East Africa.

She said they had a lot of ground to cover because they took part in the tournament after many years of absence. She added that the coach told them to relax and play their normal game and this helped them a lot. She said they learnt many things from the Nairobi tournament and this should help them in the ongoing Olympic qualifiers.

Botswana was in pool A with African powerhouse Kenya. Other giants in the pool were Cameroon and Algeria. Recently, Kenya won gold at the All Africa Games (AAG) with Cameroon and Algeria taking silver and bronze respectively.

Nkele said they could have done well if they were not in a difficult pool. She blamed their poor performance on inadequate training. She said they should have trained together for a long time but they only managed a week.  However, she said they were not under pressure because they had watched most of the countries in the tournament before. However, she believes they could have done much better if they had international build-ups. Other countries that took part in the Nairobi event are Egypt, South Africa, Tunisia, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Seychelles and Mauritius. Botswana qualified for the tournament after finishing second behind South Africa in the Zone VI competition in May.