Malkia Strikers, the national women’s volleyball team will be taking on Kazakhstan in the opening match of the FIVB Volleyball Women’s world championships in Japan tomorrow at 2pm Kenyan time.
With lack of proper preparations for the championships, Malkia Strikers will be facing Kazakhstan in the 8,000-seater Hamamatsu Arena in Hamamatsu.
It will be the first time that Kazakhstan and Kenya are meeting but Kenya have lost all their five World Championships matches against Asian opposition and in straight sets.
In FIVB records, no country has played more World Championship matches without ever claiming a single victory than Kenya (21).
At position 21, Kazakhstan are 12 places above Kenya in the FIVB world rankings, but they have only managed a 15th place finish in the four times they have taken part in this competition.
Kenya will also take comfort in the fact that Kazakhstan have lost their opening match on all their previous three World Championships appearances.
The competition brings together 24 teams who have been spread across four pools of six teams each.
The 24 teams will face each other in a round robin format in the first round, with the top four teams from each pool advancing to the second round.
Cameroon is the other African team that will represent Africa in the three-week long competition that will be held in four cities namely Hamamatsu, Kobe, Yokohama and Sapporo.
Cameroon are in Pool A alongside hosts Japan, Netherlands, Mexico and Argentina and will play their group matches in Yokohama.
Kenya’s fixtures:
- Saturday: Kazakhstan v Kenya, 1:20pm
- Sunday: Kenya v Serbia, 1:20pm
- Monday: Puerto Rico v Kenya, 10:10pm
- Wednesday Kenya v Brazil, 1:20pm