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THE Zimbabwe national men’s beach volleyball team returned home on Tuesday night from Egypt where they failed to qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympics.
In the qualifiers match Angola and Rwanda were the winners and will be proceeding to the next stage of the matches which will be played at a venue and date to be announced.
Zimbabwe were fourth after losing three games and winning one. They were also awarded a walkover win over DRC, who did not travel to Egypt for the qualifiers.
In their first match, Zimbabwe lost 1-3 to Angola before narrowly falling 2-3 to hosts Egypt following a golden set after the match had ended in a 2-2 deadlock.
They were unlucky to lose the golden set 15-12 to the Egyptians.
Zimbabwe then recorded their first win, by thumping Chad 3-0, but were silenced 1-3 by Rwanda in the next match.
Zimbabwe beach volleyball coach Vengai Nyaure said the team did its best.
“The team gave its best performance. The main reason for our defeat is that we had little preparation time, but we did our best in the short space of time we had,” said Nyaure.
He said the team also faced challenges in that the type of sand they played on was different from the Zimbabwean sand and the players needed more time to adapt.
Zimbabwe uses regular pit sand, but Nyaure said the Egyptian sand is heavier compared to the type of sand his players are accustomed to.
Online Reporter