ACTUALITE |
13.09.2005
CAN Volleyball: Cameroon Fights for Fifth Place
The Indomitable Lioness will face their Moroccan counterparts today.
The second phase of the 15th edition of the competition kicked off yesterday at the Indoor Sports Hall of the National Stadium in Abuja. At press time yesterday semi-final matches were being played. The teams in the semi-finals are host Nigeria, cup holders, Egypt, Tunisia and Kenya. Nigeria was expected to face Egypt while Kenya files up against Tunisia. Although the championship medals have eluded them, the female national volleyball team plays for better ranking today at the on-going African female volleyball cup competition. The Indomitable Lionesses of Cameroon will play against Morocco in the fifth and sixth place play-offs today at 4:00pm while Botswana will play against Cote d’Ivoire in the first match of the play-offs.
Their morale of the Cameroonian players is still high and they still stand a chance of improving their place in the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) ranking if they perform better than the other teams in the play-offs. Training has been going on normally. The last training session took place this morning after they had one yesterday morning at the Indoor Sports Hall. The atmosphere in the hotel is fine by all standards and the players are at home in Abuja. This year’s tournament does not qualify teams for the world championships but it has the same grading at the world level as other championships in Europe. The winner of this year’s competition will have the same points as the champions of Europe, Asia and America. The champion of Africa will thus be better placed than it was the case in the past. Starting from this competition, the African champion will be graded equally with champions of other continents in the FIVB rankings.
According to the coach of the Cameroonian team, even if grabbing the fifth position will translate into a regression from the third position that the team won in the last edition at Nairobi, Kenya and the World Cup qualification ticket won in Mauritius Island, all efforts will still be made to perform well in today’s play-off match since that will give the country a better ranking with FIVB. Coach Yende also confirmed that the players are in high spirit and ready to go at full steam even if this remaining match is not among the top rated encounters of the championship.
On the part of the players, one cannot deny their disappointments for not being in the semi-finals but this has not completely dampened their competitive spirits as they are promising to exert themselves and do the country proud against Morocco in today’s encounter.
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