By John Kwoba
NAIROBI, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Kenya will not enter a team in the beach volleyball Under-19 World Championship, which will be held in July in Nanjing, China.
Despite their men and women's senior teams dominating continental volleyball, Kenya has done little with the beach volleyball squad and has not entered a team in the Africa competition, which will be held in Kinshasa, DRC next week.
Confederation of African Volleyball (CAVB) Press officer Tarek Al-Adwar said only 13 teams have beat the Wednesday deadline to send in their entries and Kenya missed out.
The continental beach volleyball will see the best five teams secure ticket to world championships in Nanjing.
"The deadline closed and we have 13 countries, who will take part in the men's and women's Under-19 Beach Cup completion in DRC. The competition runs from April 20-22," said Al-Adwar.
The participating counties are hosts DRC, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville, Rwanda, Egypt, Sudan, South Africa, Mozambique and Botswana.
The teams will be divided into four pools in the preliminary stage after the drawing of lots in Kinshasa on Thursday.
"The top five teams at the end of the competition will book their tickets to the Under-19 Beach Volleyball World Championship in Nanjing, China in July," he said.
"The teams ranked 5 to 9 at the end of the competition will have places for draw at the world championships," he added. The under-19 beach volleyball is open to players who were born after January 2000.