Cairo, Egypt, January 8, 2020 - As the All Africa Games gold medallists, Cameroon are the favourites to claim the Olympic ticket in Cairo this week.
Lions head coach Blaise Mayam, however, expects a big fight for the lone African ticket to the Olympics. "It is important here to show the quality of African volleyball in presence of the major teams of the continent," he said.
"We had a big problem in our preparations as the professional players usually come to the events just a few hours before the official matches. We dealt with the situation by preparing many locally based players and decreased the number of professionals. We were able then to make longer camps to prepare our players and this was the reason for our progress last year.
"I want to thank the Cameroon Volleyball Federation President Mr Julien Serge Abouem for his great support to the new strategy that featured the improvements in our results."
"In this transition period, we also successfully supplied the team with younger players who were able to win All Africa Games gold medals."
"Regarding the opponents in the competition, I consider Egypt a good team with a lot of concentration, and we will have to fight to beat them. Tunisia have three prominent players and we have to control them. Algeria have a top level squad and they are have a good setter. We will have to work aggressively to beat them."