NAIROBI, Kenya, January 21, 2026 – National women’s volleyball team coach Geoffrey Omondi has lamented the inability of the country to host this year’s Confederation of African Volleyball (CAVB) Zone V Club Championships.
Omondi believes hosting the competition would have provided local players with the chance to test their mettle against strong opposition from other clubs.
“The Zone V Championships being taken away from us was not a good thing but I
think those are issues that Kenya Volleyball Federation (KVF) can deal with. It would have given us a more bigger picture of what they can do when we have foreign players, when we have international players, when we have professional players playing against them,” Omondi, also the head coach of Kenya Pipeline women’s team, said.
The country was scheduled to host the regional competition on February 8-16 but were stripped of the rights after KVF expressed their unreadiness.
In a letter dated January 19, CAVB indicated that the tournament has been postponed as they seek a new host.
The disappointment notwithstanding, Omondi is keen to move on to other quests, chief of which is the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
The coach says he is already building a team for the quadrennial event as they aim to breeze through the qualifiers.
“Each team that has got a proper preparation will always have an easier time in competition and so with this kind of support we are going to have a more elaborate preparation. We have made a program that will run as soon as immediately towards the 2028 Olympics,” Omondi explained.
The former Trailblazers Volleyball Club coach was handed the reins to Malkia Strikers in March last year.
His first major assignment was the World Championships in Thailand where his relatively inexperienced side beat Vietnam 3-0 in their final Pool G encounter.
In their previous tie, although they lost 3-1 to Poland, the girls had the Eastern Europeans on the ropes, winning 25-15 in the second set.
Omondi says their World Championships performance put them in a vantage position to qualify for Los Angeles, at the expense of continental rivals Cameroon and Egypt.
“It’s an advantage being home and again there’s a lot of pressure so we need to deal with the players first from the point of handling home pressure and then we take advantage of the support that we’re having from our fans to make sure that we qualify for the Olympics. It’s not going to be an easy job but it’s possible and we have the advantage because as the deputy president said, from Thailand we have gathered 176 points against Cameroon who have 76 and Egypt who have 58,” he said.
Timely scholarship
As they fix their gaze on Los Angeles, Malkia Strikers have received a 50,000 USD (approximately Ksh 6.4 million) from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to aid their preparations.
Omondi says the scholarship is a timely boost that will not only enhance training but also playing friendlies with the super powers of women’s volleyball.
On his mind is friendlies against Serbia during which he will be hoping to refine the players into polished gems.
“We need to start with them early, hence the early preparation that we want to undertake. Having come from the World Championship I saw a lot of things, I saw a lot of possibilities. We only limit ourselves in our minds,” he said.
Omondi added: “We are looking to have friendly matches with Serbian teams, Cuba, where possible as far as the budget will allow us. Our bosses are saying that
they’ll talk to the Mozart guys to be able to push something for us in Serbia. Those are friendly matches that really will go a long way. We don’t want to have friendly
matches with teams that we can beat.”
