Deaf basketball kings and queens eye continental glory

Rehab Wangeci and Cristine Nafula of Kenya Deaf team train at Nyayo Gymnasium on February 24 2016. She is preparing for the Africa Deaf Games to be held in April in Nairobi. Photo Mohammed Amin.

The national deaf basketball teams have intensified training ahead of the upcoming All Africa Deaf Games (AADG) to be held in Kenya from April 14 to 26.

This will be the first time such continental games will be held. The national teams, popularly known as Deaf kings and queens, will be competing against other nations from Africa to be crowned the first AADG basketball champions.

Deaf basketball chairlady Miriam Opondo told FeverPitch that their main objective is to win the continental championships. “Our main goal is to win and we will go for nothing less than the trophies,” she said.

Opondo pointed out that they expect stiff competition from Nigeria who are yet to confirm their participation. “Nigerian sides are very strong, but I believe that with extra efforts, we will triumph over them. Besides, we have home advantage and it will inspire us to achieve our purpose. Although they have not confirmed participation, we can’t rule them out,” Opondo said.

She, however, expressed concern over unavailability of training facilities which might hinder their progress at the competition which is fast approaching. “The basketball court is only available to us for training once a week which is not good enough.

“Consistency in training will give us good results, but we refuse to give up and hope that we go into residential camp soon and increase our sessions,” Opondo said.

The provisional squads are made up of 32 players — 18 men and 14 women — who will be fighting to make the final team of 12 players on each side.

A lot is at stake for the players as the Kenya Sports Federation of the Deaf will use the AADGs to select the provisional squads for the 2017 Deaflympics.