The Kenya women's national volleyball team, the Malkia Strikers, represents Kenya in international volleyball competitions. Kenya has dominated the African continent since the 1990s, winning the Women's African Volleyball Championship a record of ten times. They have qualified four times for the Olympics; in 2000, 2004, 2020 and 2024.
Kenya also has a beach volleyball team, who were the only women's team at the Tokyo Olympics. Kenya's women's sitting volleyball team did not qualify for Tokyo.
In 2006 the team's coach was the Japanese coach Sadatoshi Sugawara who was assisted by Paul Bitok. They contested the FIVB World Championships in Japan although the team was said to lack professional players as the chosen team were students or players who were based in Japan.[6]
In 2007 their coach Sammy Kirongo led them to a seventh Women's African Volleyball Championship victory. That year's championships was in Nairobi and the final was against Algeria. The Kenyan team included Brackcides Agala, Janet Wanja, Dorcas Ndasaba and Catherine Wanjiru. Mildred Odwako was said to be the "best digger" and Janet Wanja was the "best setter". Dorcas Ndasaba was judged "best player" after she gained the final point to deliver victory in straight sets.[7]
In 2008 they failed to qualify for the 2008 Summer Olympics after they were beaten by Algeria and four years later Algeria again denied them qualification for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.[8]
In 2015 Brackcides Agala was the captain of the team and Janet Wanja assisted her. The team announced that they refused to play for the 2015 FIVB World Grand Prix in Canberra after several victories. The players were annoyed that they had not been paid money that had been promised by the Kenya Volleyball Federation. The boycott was successful and the team played and won against Peru. However, the KVF were not pleased and when the team's were announced for the 2016 Summer Olympics neither Khadambi or her assistant Janet Wanja were asked to the qualifying matches[9] and the team failed to qualify.[8]
In 2020, under the new head coach of Paul Bitok, Kenya's women's volleyball team won the gold medal at the African Games[10] and they qualified for the postponed 2020 Summer Olympics which was the first time in sixteen years.[5]
The team set off from Kenya for the Olympics in Tokyo in three batches to try and minimise the chances of being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.[16] The team's captain Mercy Moim was chosen to be one of Kenya's flagbearers at the Olympics opening ceremony (Moim was the second woman to be given this honour following archer Shazad Anwar in 2016).[17]
Their opening match was on 25 July in Tokyo against Japan.[18] Surprisingly Paul Bitok was not on the match's touchline, but Brazilian coach Luizomar de Moura [pt] was announced as the head coach. He spoke to the press via the team manager.[19] The team lost their first match against Japan in straight sets.[20]
Kenya's beach volleyballers were in the four Continental Cup winners with Argentina, Cuba and China. Kenya has never had a beach volleyball team at the Olympics and they are only the fourth African country to send a team.[22]
The four players who qualified will make up Kenya's Olympic beach volleyball team chosen by the coach Sammy Mulinge.[23] They will compete initially with the teams from Brazil, the US and Latvia in pool D at the postponed 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.[24] The volleyballers stayed in Mombasa for training before flying to Tokyo. They were the African champions, but the pandemic meant that many of their future opponents had been able to play more matches.[25]
2021 Sitting Volleyball Paralympic team
Kenya's sitting volleyball team failed to qualify in the round robin contests in Kigali in September 2019. Rwanda won the place putting Egypt into second place in the final.[26]
