Kenya are among the 14 teams to feature in Africa Sevens Olympic qualifiers set for November 8-9 in South Africa.
Others are—Uganda, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Zambia, Tunisia, Senegal, Morocco, Namibia, Ghana, Botswana, Mauritius, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria.
The Africa Sevens winner will qualify for Tokyo 2020 while runners up will head to global repechage for another chance to qualify for the Olympics.
The top four teams from the 2019 HSBC World Sevens Series will gain automatic qualification to the Olympic Sevens with Shujaa set to miss out as they sit a distant 13th on the log with 26 points.
If South Africa miss out on qualification through the top four, they will drop to the regional qualifier and they could complicate matters for Kenya and the rest of the continent at the qualifiers. The South Africans are placed fourth on the log with 121 points.
Shujaa will be seeking a second stab at qualification having represented the continent at the 2016 Rio Olympics in Brazil. Kenya beat Zimbabwe 21-17 in the Africa Olympic qualifier in Johannesburg in 2015 with Dennis Ombachi scoring the winning try at the death.
The final opportunity for Olympic qualification will be at the men’s and women’s World Rugby Olympic Repechage tournament which will take place in a window between the end of the regional qualifiers and June 2020. It will feature 12 women’s and 12 men’s teams with the second and third team in each regional competition invited to participate.
