Kenyan teams qualify for 2023 Africa games

Kenya Hockey Men at the City Park Hockey Stadium set to travel to Ghana to represent the Country at the Africa Cup of Nations from 17-23rd January 2022. Jan 13, 2022. [Jonah Onyango, Standard]

National men’s and women’s hockey teams have qualified for next year’s Africa Games to be held in Ghana.

Kenya booked the slots yesterday after the North-East Africa region qualifiers that were scheduled for next week at the Sikh Union Stadium in Nairobi were cancelled.

The qualifiers, which were scheduled for May 17-21, were to feature eight nations with the top two nations in each gender qualifying for the event.

The countries were Tanzania , Egypt, Burundi, Libya, Seychelles, Sudan, Uganda and Kenya.

However, by last Tuesday, only Kenya and Uganda had confirmed participation a move that saw Africa Hockey Federation declare the two as the qualified nations.

Therefore, Africa Hockey Federation (AfHF) has given direct tickets to both Kenya and Uganda.

“The AfHF was hoping that Tanzania men’s and women’s teams would be able to confirm joining Kenya and Uganda but this was finally confirmed as not possible," said Ahmed Azmy, CEO of AfHF.

“Kenya and Uganda are therefore declared by the AfHF as qualified teams from the North-East Region for the 2023 Africa Games-cum-2024 Paris Olympic qualifier."

Meanwhile, the African body asked Kenya and Uganda to play test series matches.

“In case both your teams would still like to play in a format of a test series matches, the AfHF would welcome it and will sanction such event given KHU follows the required sanctioned event process,” said the federation.