The Kenyan volleyball team arrived in Nairobi in two different batches from Blida, Algeria. The first batch arrived on Monday morning at 6:00AM via Doha, Qatar and the second six hours later after two stop over’s in Cairo and Addis Abba. The Kenyan team had traveled to Algeria for the 2012 London Olympics.
The two groups had been booked on different flights with the Kenyan Government through the ministry of Sports catering for the first group of eight players and the team coach (Nine members) while the second batch was catered for by the Kenya Volleyball Federation -KVF- in collaboration with the National Olympics Committee of Kenya- NOC -K.
The second group’s return was hit by major delays in connecting flights from Algeria since there are no direct flights from the North African nation to Nairobi. The group left Blida in Algeria on Sunday at 3:00PM (Kenyan time) for a 5:30pm arrival in Cairo in Egypt where they were forced to wait for another eight hours before getting a connecting flight to Addis Abba in Ethiopia. The connecting flight departed Cairo at 2:30AM on Monday morning for Addis Abba. In Ethiopia, the players and coach had to endure another three hours of waiting for a direct flight from the Ethiopian capital to Nairobi’s JKIA.
“This was one of the longest and toughest journeys we have experienced in our different travels and it was tiresome but we thank God because we are back home safely though without the trophy.” Said Janet Wanja one of the team members.
Kenya lost to Algeria in the final match of the London Olympics qualifier on Saturday and as such will not be part of the participating teams at the London Olympics later in 2012.Algeria qualified after winning all her matches against three other participating teams: Kenya, Egypt and Seychelles.
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