Namibia hosts Zone 6 Beach Volleyball tourney 

The third leg of the Confederation of African Volleyball Zone 6 Beach Volleyball Tour started at the DTS Club in Windhoek yesterday with five Southern African nations participating. 

The hosts Namibia, South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho and Zimbabwe are in action at the tournament which started with the group matches yesterday and continue with the quarterfinal knockout stages today, and the semifinals and finals tomorrow.

At the official launch yesterday morning the director of sport Jo-Ann Manuel welcomed the participating teams and thanked the Namibia Volleyball Federation for presenting Namibia to host the tournament. She also congratulated the NVF and its president Hillary Dux Imbuwa on the strides the yhave made to develop the sport throughout the country. 

“I have been following with keen interest how you have clustered the regions into competition blocks and your ever-spectacular year-end competition which brings the best of the volleyball players in the country, to one centre for a weekend concluding competition. We thank the NVF for this commitment and remember our offices remain open to you,” she said. 

Manuel commended the Zone 6 region for its success at the recent Africa Games in Ghana, where South Africa won the silver medal and Botswana the bronze medal. She noted that only eight sport codes at the Africa Games had Olympic qualifying tournaments and called on sport confederations to ensure that their respective codes are accorded more Olympic qualifiers, particularly on the continent. 

“Moreover, we call upon the confederations to accord member states with more international competitions, in order to ensure that the zonewill dominate as podium finishers at major international sporting events like the African Games, the Commonwealth Games, the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games,” she said.

“The 2024 Paris Olympic Games take place from 26 July to 11 August, while the Paris Paralympic Games take place from 28 August to 8 September. The question is how many of the member-states from our Volleyball Zone VI region have qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games?” she added. 

Eight men and 11 women’s teams are competing in the tournament, with the men’s competition consisting of two pools of four teams each, while the women’s competition consists of two pools of four teamsand one pool of three teams. 

In the men’s competition, all the teams will qualify for the quarterfinal knockout stages, with yesterday’s group matches just determining the knockout line-ups.

In the women’s competition the top two teams of each of the three groups as well as the two best third place finishers will qualify for the quarterfinals.

The Botswana and South Africa men’s teams took the lead in Pool A and B respectively after yesterday’s opening pool matches. 

The Botswana team of Jack Chiswaniso and Mosiiwa Baleofi lead Pool A, followed by Luca Kesselmann and Max Kraft of Namibia, while Danilo von Ludwiger and Heiko Guther of South Africa lead Pool B, followed by Jan Erik Sack and Luke Brinkmann of Namibia.