By Ben Ochieng
NAIROBI, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Kenya will send a team of 12 players and four officials to the second edition of the Women's World Super 6 Para Volleyball championships scheduled for May in Wenjiang, China.
Polycarp Mboya, the President of the ParaVolley Federation of Kenya, told Xinhua in Nairobi that Kenya is one of the six countries that was nominated to take part in the event alongside hosts China, Russia, Ukraine, Japan and Uzbekistan.
"Kenya was nominated to take part in the event as one of the top three teams in Africa and the government has already pledged assistance worth 50,000 U.S. dollars to enable the team to travel to the competition," Mboya said.
The president said the world body gave Kenya the chance to take part in the competition after the East African nation missed out on last year's qualifying event for the World Cup.
The World Super 6 is a new event concept for World ParaVolley. The first edition was held in Hangzhou in 2017 where Russia emerged victorious.
The competition, which features some of the world's top female teams, has a 25,000 dollar prize that is offered to the top teams and also to the individual award winners.
Mboya said that even though the men's tournament will also take place in April in Tabriz, Iran, the federation settled on the Chinese host city in order to give the women's team international exposure and bring them to the top level.
Sitting volleyball, which is played by disabled players in a sitting position, is one of the evolving sports in Kenya, but its spread is hampered by a lack of infrastructure and inadequate funding. Enditem
