Bitok summons 16 for World Championship Qualifiers

THE Men’s national team head coach Paul Bitok has summoned sixteen players to start immediate preparations for the upcoming sub zonal World Championship Qualifiers, scheduled for July 23-29 in Kigali.Rwanda will host the week-long sub-zone tournament which will attract teams from Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan before hosting again the main Zone V championships in November.The team which goes into residential camp on Wednesday is made up of Evode Munyandinda, Eugene Tuyishime and Olivier Ntagengwa, all from NUR, and APR duo of Aimable Mutuyimana and Fred Musoni, among others.However, Bitok’s team will be without influential Qatar-based centre-player Vincent Dusabimana Gasongo who has been ruled out with a knee injury. “Gasongo is still undergoing treatment, meaning he is not available for the upcoming tournament,” said Bitok.Rwanda and other continental national teams are set to walk a tedious journey to qualify for 2014 FIVB World Championships.The new format lays out three stages until the African qualifiers secure their tickets to the FIVB prestigious events to be hosted by Poland for men and Italy for women next year.According to a report by the CAVB, the first phase, which is the Sub-Zonal tournaments features 43 men and 39 women teams.Zones one and seven countries will be in one pool as each of them has only four countries, while zones two, three, four, five and six will be divided into two sub groups.Rwanda are drawn in Zone Six under Pool ‘I’ alongside Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia.The top three teams from each sub-zonal pool qualify to the second phase, which is the zonal phase that involves 36 countries in both genders.In the final phase of the men qualifications, the top three ranked teams in the last FIVB ranking will join the 12 qualifiers to make a total of 15 teams.Rwanda’s Full squad: Herve Kagimbura, Flavien Ndamukunda and Pierre Kwizera Marshal from Inatek, Elie Mutabazi, Theodore Hyango, Bosco Mutabazi, Fred Musoni and Amiable Mutuyimana from APR, Eugene Tuyishime, Eric Nsabimana, Olivier Ntagengwa, Guillaume Irakarama, Evode Munyandinda, Emile Karera Dada based in National University of Rwanda, Placide Sibomana and Christophe Mukunzi played in Qatari and Lawrence Yakan Guma, who based in Algeria.

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Bitok summons 16 for World Championship Qualifiers