12th African Games in Rabat, Morocco Win for women’s volleyball team against Nigeria |23 August 2019

The women’s volleyballers beat their opponents from Nigeria yesterday

The Seychelles women’s volleyball team have made a good start in pool A at the ongoing 12th African Games in Rabat, Morocco, by downing Nigeria yesterday.

Coached by Julien Onezime, the Seychelles team gave themselves a good chance of making it to the knockout stage by defeating Nigeria 3-2 (25-23, 18-25, 25-20, 23-25, 15-11) in their first group A match last night.

Their next match is against Morroco on Saturday and they will meet Botswana in their final pool game on Monday August 26.

Pool B is made up of Kenya, Cameroon and Senegal. The top two teams in each pool will progress to the cross knockout semifinals.

A day after giving Seychelles its first gold medal – a gold in the 200m backstroke – at the ongoing 12th African Games in Rabat, Morocco, Felicity Passon dived into the Mohammed V Olympic Swimming Pool again yesterday but did not finish among the medals this time.

Passon could only finish fifth in the 50m butterfly final in a new Seychelles record time of 27.43 seconds. The gold medal was won by Egyptian Farida Osman in 25.94 seconds and the silver went to South African Erin Gallagher in 26.24 seconds, while her compatriot Emma Chellius settled for the bronze medal with 27.40 seconds.

On Wednesday, Passon touched the wall first in the women’s 200m backstroke final in 2 minutes 14.55 seconds (2:14.55) for a new Seychelles record to finish ahead of South African Samantha Randle (second in 2:15.55) and Zimbabwean Stacie Lee Robyn (third in 2:22.50).

Four other Seychellois swimmers were also in action yesterday.

Khema Elizabeth was ranked 13th out of 13 swimmers in the women’s 200m freestyle with a time of 2 minutes 24.72 seconds (2:24.72). She was also ranked 17th out of 20 in the 50m butterfly race with 32.03 seconds.

In the men’s 100m breaststroke, Samuele Rossi clocked 1:07.21 to be ranked 13th out of 18.

As for the Bachmann brothers – Simon and Mathieu – they swam the 50m butterfly event. Mathieu finished 17th out of 34 with 25.99 seconds and Simon was ranked 23rd with 26.98 seconds.

In boxing, Jovet Jean lost 0-5 to Ghanaian Samed Shakul on Wednesday night in his light heavyweight (81kg) fight.

Andrique Allisop has won a bye into the eighth final of the 63kg class where he will meet either Moroccan Nadir Abdelhaq or Tunisian Ben Haj Aouina Akrem.

As for Shain Boniface, he was up against Mauritian Merven Clair in the 69kg category last night and lost 0-5.

G. G.