Kenya 3 x 3 Basketball teams, Shujaa book Commonwealth Games slots

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 9 – Kenya’s Men’s and Women’s 3 x 3 Basketball teams have qualified for the 2022 Commonwealth Games to be held in Birmingham, United Kingdom.

Both teams booked automatic slots by virtue of being ranked second best teams in the continent since Egypt is not a member of the Commonwealth Country.

The men’s team comprises of Fidel Akoth, Ronald Gundo and Martin Buluma while the women are Oluoch Taudencia, Melissa Akinyi, Natali Mwangale and Christine Akinyi.

In 2019, the team participated at the All-African Games and came in fourth then took part in the African Cup Games in Kampala where they finished sixth last year.

Basketball 3×3 will be played in the heart of Birmingham City Centre at the Smithfield site, which is being transformed in readiness for Birmingham 2022.

This is Basketball 3×3’s first ever appearance at the Commonwealth Games with the more familiar 5 x 5 version of the game being contested twice at the Commonwealth Games, first in Melbourne in 2006 and Gold Coast in 2018.

The Basketball teams join the Kenya men’s Sevens team, Shujaa who were the first Kenyan team to qualify for Commonwealth Games 2022 after getting a direct qualification based on the Games’ Athlete Allocation System where ranking on the World Sevens Series from the seasons 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 as at 31 March 2020 and performance in World Rugby Sevens Series and regional tournaments determine the direct qualified teams.

16 men’s teams will compete in the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games rugby sevens competition, from 29-31 July, at the Coventry Stadium.

However, their women’s counterparts, Kenya Lionesses, will wait for the African Regional Qualifier that should be done by early next year to get a spot in the Games.