Ulinzi’s South Africa trip in jeopardy as Omicron surges

Kenya Basketball Federation (KBF) men’s league champions Ulinzi Warriors are set to travel to South Africa for the final qualifiers of the Basketball Africa League (BAL) 2022 set for 6 to 11 December.

Warriors are in the Eastern Division of the Elite 16 that consists of two groups, H1 and H2. H1 consists of Cape Town Tigers (South Africa), New Stars (Burundi), Kurasini Heats (Tanzania) and Matero Magic (Zambia), while H2 is made up of Ferroviario da Beira (Mozambique), Ulinzi Warriors (Kenya), City Oilers (Uganda) and Cobra Sport (South Sudan).

Ulinzi Warriors in final preps as BAL qualifiers near

However, SARS-CoV-2 variant B.1.1.529, which the World Health Organization (WHO) has called Omicron puts the Games in jeopardy as some countries have already put travel bans on South Africa where the variant was identified on 22 November in South Africa, from a sample collected from a patient on 9 November.

The WHO classified Omicron as a “variant of concern” because it has a wide range of mutations. This suggests vaccines and treatments could be less effective. Australia, United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union have already banned travellers from nine southern African countries. Travellers from South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Seychelles, Malawi, and Mozambique who travelled in said countries in the past 14 days will have to isolate.

The 16 teams competing at this stage have been divided into four groups of four each with eight teams set to compete in the Western Division, as the other eight teams will battle it out in the Eastern Division.

The Western Division is made up of two groups, G1 and G2. G1 consists of F.A.P (Cameroon), A.S Police (Mali), S.O.A (Cote d'Ivoire) and ASPAC (Benin); while G2 is made up of Association Sportive Sale (Morocco), SLAC (Guinea), A.S Nigelec (Niger) and Espoir Fukashi (DR Congo). The Cameroonian capital city of Yaounde will host the Western Division groups. The games in Yaounde will run from 11 to 16 December.

During the qualifiers, the four teams in each group are set to play against each other, and the teams that finish in the top two places of each of the 4 groups will advance to the semis, finals and a third-place game. The winners of the semi-finals and winners of the third-place game will qualify for the second edition of the BAL.

The league champions of Angola, Egypt, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Tunisia qualified automatically to the final tournament, where they will be joined by 6 other teams that will have made it from the qualifiers.