Volleyball: 2018 FIVB Women's World Championship qualification (CAVB) |10 October 2017

Seychelles team stay home, more emphasis on IOIG prep

With the 2017 Women’s African Nations Championship currently taking place in Cameroon, Seychelles’ female volleyballers are at home and for many this is an unusual situation.

Sports NATION has learned that the Seychelles Volleyball Federation (SVF) decided not to send the country’s women’s team to the competition as it aims to give more time to preparation for the 2019 Indian Ocean Island Games (IOIG) to be held in Mauritius.

“We decided against entering this tournament because we felt it was better to conserve our resources for other tournaments, especially those where we feel we have better chances of success, such as the IOIG,” said SVF secretary Terry Servina.

The African Championship also serves as qualification for the World Championship which is scheduled to take place in Japan, next year.

The Confederation of African Volleyball (CAVB) Board of Administration meeting of May 25, 2017, decided to merge the 2017 Women's African Volleyball Championship and 2018 FIVB World Championship continental qualifiers. The top two teams from among the teams who have registered with FIVB for the 2018 World Championship, will qualify to represent Africa in the 2018 FIVB Volleyball Women's World Championship.

The qualifiers took place between July and September. Seychelles were originally drawn in group G alongside Mauritius and Madagascar, but all three countries withdrew from the tournament.

Burundi, Gambia, Lesotho, Libya, Malawi, Namibia, Niger, Sudan, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Gabon and Central African Republic also withdrew from the zonal qualification.

Mr Servina added: “We had only informed the National Sports Council (NSC) of this decision and therefore had no need to call for a selection of players.”

Seychelles will certainly be looking to be well prepared for the 2019 IOIG to be held in Mauritius, especially as the women’s team have a gold medal to defend, where winning would see them win it three times in a row ‒ a feat they missed out on in 2007 in Madagascar after having won the gold medals in 1998 in Reunion and 2003 in Mauritius.

The Seychelles women’s team were also the winners of the 12th African Championship in Port Harcourt, Nigeria in 2001.

S. N.