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Kenya women’s beach volleyball team of Gaudencia Makokha, Braxedes Agala, Phosca Kasisi and Yvonne Wavinya had their hopes of joining Malkia Strikers in the Tokyo Olympics crushed after it emerged they could not travel to Nigeria for the second round qualifiers due to coronavirus fear.

The team has been in residential training in Mombasa under coach Sammy Mulinge and were scheduled to leave the country on Wednesday ahead of the qualifiers that began yesterday and were set to run through to Saturday at Jabi Lake in Abuja, Nigeria.

Top two teams in the group that also had Cape Verde, Republic Democratic of Congo (DRC), Zambia and hosts Nigeria would have qualified for the third and final phase to pick African representatives for the Summer Games.

Kenya Volleyball Federation (KVF) boss Waithaka Kioni, who is also the head of delegation to the Summer Games, confirmed that only Zambia travelled to the qualifiers as the other two teams chose to stay away.  

“I feel for the players as they had a real chance of qualifying and they put in the hours in training in readiness for this. While this is devastating, we also have to remain cautious of this disease,” said Kioni.

“We were at the ministry’s offices on Wednesday morning to pick the travel tickets and that was when the information was relayed to us.

The men’s beach volleyball team is in training, as are other different disciplines and we are hoping that the pandemic does not hit Gambia so that they are able to go and compete,” added Kioni.

In a statement dated February 28, the Ministry of Sports, while committing themselves to supporting various sports organisations and teams participating in the Olympics qualifiers and other local and international events called for caution against non-essential travel.

“The Ministry’s activities have a considerable percentage of foreign travel. The Ministry of Health has advised against non-essential travel to countries experiencing the outbreak of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) or high risk.

The Ministry of Sports, Culture and Heritage urges all Sports organisations preparing teams for various events to take this advice into consideration,” read part of the statement.

“Sports organisations and other stakeholders preparing teams travelling out of the country are advised to consult this Ministry, Ministry of Health and host countries regarding the health situation prior to making travel arrangements.

Against this background the Ministry will cautiously support for international events in the best interest of the athletes and the country at large.”