Cairo, Egypt, March 12, 2005 – Both the Egyptian women’s and men’s teams will start their 2006 World Championship campaigns as favourites when the first two men’s and women’s tickets for a spot in the 2006 World Championships final round in Japan are played off for when African first and second round tournaments take place in Cairo from March 17-26.

Starting on March 17, a three-day African women’s first round tournament begins while one week later, on March 24, an African men’s second round tournament starts with both tournament winners claiming the distinguished honour of being the first teams to advance through to the final round of the 2006 World Championships in Japan.

Four teams – Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa and Botswana - will compete for the first African women’s ticket to Japan 2006. With normal crowds of over 3,000, Egypt are the strong favourite to win the tournament and claim the ticket to Japan.

The Abdallah Al-Faysal hall, which hosted the seventh Girls U-18 African Nations Championship in January, has hosted many important continental events and once again the local support is expected to be immense.

Egypt’s closest challengers are expected to be Nigeria, the winners of the gold medal at the All Africa Games in 2003, who are expected to use most of the line up which achieved the only trophy in their country's women’s Volleyball history.

South Africa, meanwhile, are a team which is rebuilding under their Egyptian Coach Abdelhamid El-Wassimy but has recently made great progress through their condensed preparation programme.

The final team in the women’s tournament is Botswana, who are savouring the opportunity to compete on the international stage.

The men's competition, which will be organized by the Union club, will be played on the fringe of the Mediterranean Sea in the beautiful city of Alexandria where millions of tourists have their summer vacations. The hosts Egypt are joined by Cameroon, RD Congo and Sudan, who reached the tournament having won the first round tournament in Sudan in February.

The tournament will be held from March 24-26 with Egypt, who participated in the 2003 World Cup, as hot favourites with their Serbian coach Vasline Vukovic completing a thorough preparation programme following the end of their local league at the end of February.

Cameroon, semifinalists in both the 2003 African Nations championship and the 2003 All Africa Games, will use seven European based professionals in their line up aiming to collect their first ever ticket to the World Championship final round, while RD Congo, meanwhile, will depend mainly on the experienced players of their local league.

Sudan is the first African team to have advanced from the first round as they won the first African men's tournament on February 3.

By Tarek Al-Adwar, CAVB Press Officer.