Moim leads Kenya’s Malkia Strikers to historic victory in Japan

Moses Tanui after winning silver medal in Stuttgart in 1993. [IAAF]

History was written in Japan yesterday as the national women’s volleyball team, Malkia Strikers and African champions Cameroon registered their first ever victories at the World Volleyball Championship.

Experienced Kenyan captain Mercy Moim led by example scoring 24 points as the nine time African champions humiliated Kazakhstan, thrashing the Asian nation by straight sets (25-23, 25-22,25-21) in their opening Group D match at Hamamatsu Arena, Japan.

Middle-blocker Edith Wisa grabbed ten points for Japheth Munala’s side in the historic triumph.

It was also a dream start for Cameroon when they overcame Mexico 3-1 (25-17,23-25, 16-25, 21-25) in a Group A match in Yokohama.

The impressive performance left Moim a happy woman, hailing her teammates for the job well-done.

“This means a lot. It is our first time to win at a World Championship. We believed in ourselves and our training. Our coaches prepared us well. We played like normal against Kazakhstan and did what we do in practice,” said the Kenya Prisons left attacker.  

Head coach Japheth Munala also couldn’t hide his joy, but warned his charges to remain focused ahead of today’s 1.20pm tricky tie against Rio 2016 Olympic Games finalists, Serbia. Serbia posted a convincing 3-0 (25-17, 25-20, 25-22) victory over the Dominican Republic yesterday.

“I’m happy. We were very well prepared for this match. I’m pleased that our practice has yielded results,” said Munala.

His Kazakhstan counterpart Shapran Vyacheslav conceded defeat and said: “It was the first game and our players were nervous. They could not show their best performance. Maybe in the next matches we will be better. We will try to take it game-by-game.”

Kazakhstan went ahead 12-6 in the first set, but a spirited Kenya fought back to draw 12-12 after a first Time Out.

Kenyans capitalised on Kazakhstan’s unforced errors and poor blocking to keep them on toes.