Kenya Lionesses head coach Dennis Mwanja said they will use next month's Dubai Invitational Sevens tournament as a build-up for the Olympic qualifiers next year.
The former international said playing against top-quality teams in the event will give an indicator of where the team stands.
“This will be a good opportunity to test ourselves against the best teams in the world and show us where we are. Our goal remains to qualify for the Paris Olympics in 2024,” added Mwanja.
The Lionesses have played in the past two Olympics in Rio 2016 and Tokyo last year without much success and one team from the continent will qualify for the Paris Games in 2024.
Kenya will face two qualifiers next year after finishing sixth in the Africa Cup Sevens in April in Tunisia this year.
There will be a pre-qualifier in June and then the main qualifier in Zambia will be in August.
"We have two qualifiers to navigate and therefore, we will take one tournament at a time and do all our best to ensure we qualify for Paris,” said Mwanja.
The KCB assistant coach said they have been buoyed by their August performance in the Challenger Series in Chile, where they finished fourth overall, narrowly missing out on qualification to the 2022/23 World Sevens Series.
“The girls have grown in leaps and bounds. We had a poor start in Tunisia but you saw our performance in Chile where we worked hard and showed our quality. The best is yet to come," said Mwanja.
The tactician said the girls must continue with the same trajectory for Dubai and at the qualifiers.
"We are not the finished article yet. We have lots to work on in various facets of play and we are headed in the right direction,” he added.
He added that some of the players from the 15s squad will play for the sevens. “We have some players in the Lionesses squad who will be considered for the Sevens team for the next year,” he noted.
Mwanja said the technical bench will be keeping a close eye on the Women's Kenya Cup which starts in the next fortnight.
"We will be attending these matches to assess players for both the Sevens and 15s game,” observed Mwanja.
