NAIROBI, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- The Kenyan women's volleyball team is among the four best-ranked African nations that will battle for the 2020 Tokyo Games ticket during the intercontinental Olympic qualification tournament which will be held in Italy in August.
Global volleyball governing body FIVB has announced that Kenya and Cameroon will be the only women's teams making the tournament, while Cameroon, Tunisia and Egypt will take part in the men's competition where 24 teams in each gender have confirmed participation.
"In accordance with the world ranking on Jan. 1, the pools for the first stage of the qualification process for the volleyball tournament at the 2020 Olympic Games are now confirmed," said Waithaka Kioni, chairman of Kenya's Volleyball Federation (KVF) in Nairobi.
The 48 teams - 24 in each gender - will be divided into six groups with the winners, to be played in single round-robin format, joining hosts Japan in the volleyball competition at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
David Lung'aho, KVF's technical director, however, is optimistic that the national team will qualify for the Olympics.
"Even if we don't qualify though the intercontinental tournament, the event will provide much needed warm up and preparations for the African qualifiers, where we will face another challenge from Cameroon and Egypt," said Lung'aho on Tuesday in Nairobi.
Host cities for each pool will be announced soon.
In the women's competition, Cuba did not confirm its participation and will be replaced by Poland.
The Olympic qualification process will continue in January 2020 with each of the five continental confederations organizing their own Olympic qualification tournaments to advance one team each per gender to Tokyo.
The Olympic Games finals will feature 12 teams each in both men and women's categories.
Host Japan is guaranteed a berth, which leaves 11 slots up for grabs. Six will be filled at the intercontinental Olympic qualification tournament while the last five will be taken during the continental qualifiers to make sure each region is represented.
The Kenyan women were last featured at the Olympics back in 2004 in Athens, Greece. At the intercontinental Olympic qualification tournament, Kenya has been pooled alongside European volleyball bigwigs Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium in Group F.
Cameroon, Africa's other representative, has to navigate its path past Brazil, Dominican Republic and Azerbaijan in Pool D.
