Kenya loses volleyball Olympic qualifiers hosting bid to Brazzaville

Kenya's bid to host the African zone Olympic qualifiers in Nairobi in January next year was turned down on Monday, with Confederation of African Volleyball (CAVB) selecting Brazzaville, Congo.

"This is to confirm that the Confederation of African Volleyball (CAVB) has selected Brazzaville, Congo to host the week long Africa Olympic qualifiers for indoor volleyball from January 7-14, 2016," CAVB said in a statement.

Brazzaville hosted the Africa Games in September and CAVB was convinced their facilities are the best currently to stage the competition, reports Xinhua.

Only one team will be selected from Africa to compete at the Olympics, and Kenya Volleyball Federation (KVF) had put in a bid to stage the qualifiers to boost chances for its team to seize the berth.

However, they will have to pull every trick in the book to secure the ticket now that the event has been taken to Brazzaville.

A total of 22 men's teams have confirmed interest to battle for the single slot to represent Africa at the Rio Games next year.

The registered countries are Algeria, Tunisia, Gambia, Cape Verde, Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Ghana, Central Africa, Congo Brazzaville, Congo RDC, Cameroon, Gabon, Kenya, Egypt, Sudan, Uganda, Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Madagascar.

This will be the highest number of teams battling for a single ticket in history of Olympic qualifying tournaments. The teams have up to November 20 to register their players for the tournament.

In 2012 London Olympics, Africa was represented by Tunisia while Egypt qualified to Beijing Games in 2008.