African qualifiers confirmed for Hamburg!

Teams representing Mozambique, Morocco, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Egypt, Mauritius and Nigeria are heading to Hamburg.

With no African teams among the top 23 teams in the world, the continent’s representatives at the Rothenbaum was decided at this week’s Africa Beach Volleyball Cup in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

The four semifinalists in the competition each booked their place for this year’s showpiece event in Germany.

In the men’s division, Mozambique, Morocco, Rwanda and Sierra Leone will head to north Germany.

And Rwanda will have two teams competing at Hamburg as their women’s teams also qualified, alongside teams from Mauritius, Nigeria and Egypt. 2016 Olympian Doaa Elghobashy and teammate Farida El Askalany confirmed Egypt’s first ever women’s team to play at a World Championships.

Tochukwu Nnoruga and Fransica Ikhiede of Team Nigeria defeated Rakatou Seydou and Roukaya Garba of Niger Republic 21-18, 21-16 to earn Nigeria their first ever appearance in either gender in World Championship history.

Reacting to the result, the President of Nigeria Volleyball Federation, Engineer Musa Nimrod was delighted to see the team book their ticket to the finals.

He said: “Qualifying to the world championship is what we have being looking forward for; because it is one of the reasons we are hosting the games.”

The competition will continue over the weekend to find a winner but four teams per gender that made the semifinals are assured of a place at the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships presented by comdirect and ALDI Nord.

Each qualifying nation will now choose which individual players will form the teams that head to Hamburg.

Congratulations to all the winners – see you at the Rothenbaum!