And it doesnt stop there. Add the likes of Nada Hamdy, Sohila Wafeek, May Mahmoud, Dalia Morshedy and Ayah Elnady to the mix and Egypt have a large pool of young players to summon for international assignments, no wonder they have started dominating womens volleyball in Africa.
What we are seeing now is the result of an investment made way back in January 2020 when Egypt performed dismally in the African qualifiers for Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games held in Yaounde, Cameroon. Kenya beat Egypt 3-1 as they topped the qualifiers unbeaten to punch their ticket to the Japanese capital.
Then Egypts head coach Marco Antonio Queiroga, had been seconded to Egypt by International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) as part of capacity building with the Egyptian Volleyball Federation. However, EVBF sought to retain Marco permanently in Egypt and tasked him with developing young players who would make Egypt a formidable force in African volleyball.
FIVB has invested CHF 72,000 in Coach Support through Brazilian coaches Percy Oncken and Marco Antonio who have been working with Egypts junior boys and girls teams respectively.
And the results are there to see; Egypt womens team has since qualified for the World Championship next year while the mens team will be Africas sole representative at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Even more encouraging for the Egyptians is that their young players, the products of Percy and Marcos work, are a key part of this success, their transition to senior ranks having been eased through regular participation in age-group competitions at continental and global level.
The same cannot be said of Kenya who have been conspicuously missing from African age-group competitions in recent times. For a long time now, Kenya Volleyball Federation (KVF) has been relying on schools to produce young players who are quickly integrated into the senior national team before going through the necessary development stages.
At times, the 'happy accidents' have produced great players like Sharon Chepchumba, Gladys Ekaru and Veronica Adhiambo but this route is not sustainable. If anything, the recent results by Kenyan clubs and Malkia Strikers in international competitions have shown that you cannot ride on 'happy accidents' to produce sustainable results.
The likes of Edith Wisa, Trizah Atuka, Mercy Moim and Agripina Kundu slowly rose through the ranks starting out at junior level before ascending to the senior team where they have dominated for long. Their longevity points to a stable foundation which lends credence to the fact that Kenya has to revive its junior programmes to compete with the likes of Egypt and Cameroon in the womens game. Technically, the current crop of Egyptian players is at another level and you can easily tell their understanding of the game has been polished by consistently featuring in international tournaments from a young age.
Youth programme
