Africa Cup-bound handball team yet to begin training

Kenya men's national handball side is yet to hit residential training for the upcoming Confederation of African Handball Federation (CAHB) Africa Cup of Nations. 

The team is in pool B that has Algeria, Gabon and Guinea for the tourney set for 11 to 18 July in Egypt. Teams are expected to arrive on 9 July. 

Kenya has less than a month to prepare for the competition that doubles as the African qualifying tournament for the 2023 World Men's Handball Championship set for Poland and Sweden and the Paris 2024 Olympics. 

Africa handball men's tourney draw released

Egypt will host the Championships in 2022 and 2024, replacing the previously scheduled hosts, Morocco and Algeria.

Due to political tensions between Morocco and Algeria, the confederation on 29 March in a press release that it had decided to ban the two North African countries from organizing the next two editions of the tournament. 

Morocco was originally set to organize the African Championship in January 2022, which led to Algeria boycotting the cup. The CAHB postponed the tournament on two occasions, from January to June, and from June to July 2022.

The Kenyan team have their work cut out against more experienced sides as Algeria will be making their 24th appearance, coming in as the last editions bronze medalists.

Gabon are making a ninth appearance and hoping to kmprove on their placing in 2020 where they finished eighth while Guinea are in the championship for the third time after a debut in 1981 and an appearance in 2020 when they placed tenth. 

The last edition of the biennial competition saw Egypt dethrone Tunisia to book a ticket to the Tokyo Olympics Games. 

Kenya, participating for the third time after a debut in 2004 and again in 2016 lost all their three group matches for an early exit in the main Cup contention as the team ended up 15th out of the 16 participating teams.