Kenya's
quest for international exposure got a shot in the arm on Tuesday after
it was nominated to join Algeria as Africa representative in the
lucrative World Volleyball Grand Prix in 2014.Waithaka Kioni, the Kenya
Volleyball Federation (KVF) chairman, expressed his happiness for the
elevation of their women's team to the premier volleyball
competition.However, he said financial constraints might be the
bottleneck in their ambition to rub shoulders with the world's best
teams."The World Grand Prix is an international circuit and if it comes
out that each team must fund its tour expenses, then it would be
difficult for Kenya to honor the matches. We have shortfall in finances
and we will discuss with FIVB if they can bail us out," said Kioni in
Nairobi.World volleyball governing body, FIVB,cheap paper plates said
Kenya would join other seven teams in the expanded World Grand Prix,
which brings together the best countries and regions in indoor
volleyball across the globe."The FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix has
followed in the footsteps of the FIVB Volleyball World League and will
include 28 countries for the first time in its history up from the usual
20 teams in 2014," said a statement by FIVB.Only Algeria, who were
Africa representatives at the London Olympic Games, played in the 2013
World Grand Prix, but Kenya's rising star has been spotted by FIVB and
they will now join the top competition, played on round robin format in
the New Year.
"We
are increasing by eight the number of participants from 20 who featured
earlier this year," said FIVB statement.The 28 countries and regions
have been split across three pools. Pool A has 12 teams including
defending champions and world number one Brazil, the United States,
Japan,party supplies China, Russia, Italy,bag suppliers Serbia,paper straw the Dominican Republic, Germany, South Korea, Turkey and Thailand.Another eight teams make Pool B, which has Poland,Buy Cheap Abercrombie Jewelry Peru,
Puerto Rico, Netherlands, Argentina, Canada, Cuba and Belgium.The third
pool will have teams from Kenya, Algeria, Kazakhstan, Croatia, the
Czech Republic, Mexico, Bulgaria and Australia."The distribution was
based on world ranking with the exceptions of Belgium and Cuba, who had
qualified via continental qualification tournaments, and Australia who
participate as part of the Oceania development program," said FIVB.A
draw was conducted during the meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland to
determine which positions each country fills in the pool
distribution.The FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix 2014 will start on
July 25 with teams in Pool B and Pool C in action. The top seeds, who
are in Pool A will begin proceedings one week later on Aug. 1.The teams
will play round robin across three weeks in the preliminaries before the
finals from August 20 when six teams - the four best in the preliminary
round ranking, the finals host and the winner of the final four from
Pool B - will feature.
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