The national women’s volleyball team Malkia Strikers landed in Mombasa for a low altitude training ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games in July.
The squad of 16 players will use the Mombasa tour to acclimatize with the Japanese climate since in Tokyo the weather will be similar as the Games will be held during Summer time.
Malkia Strikers led by Captain Mercy Moim and head coach Paul Bitok, on Thursday 13 conducted light training, holding gym sessions under the watchful eyes of the Brazilian High Performance training coaches.
As part of their program, the team will be expected on Friday 14, to hold a media relations training that will be facilitated by the media team attached to the Tokyo Olympic Games by the Olympic board.
The media team will aid training the players on how to conduct interviews at a major competition, confidence before camera, personal branding and image building as well as social media etiquette among other virtues.
The Malkia Strikers will later on be expected to play a friendly match at the sandy beaches of the coastal city that will help the coaches in gauging the teams fitness levels.
Malkia Strikers were supposed to head to Brazil for a month-long camp but the trip was sponsored by world volleyball governing body CAVB but was later cancelled by the Ministry of Health due to the surge of COVID-19 cases in the South American country.
The Coastal visit which is facilitated by the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOC-K) comes two weeks after the cancellation of the team's 45 day high Intensity training sessions in Brazil was halted by the government.
The team has been in a biosecure bubble camp at the Kenyatta University since late March in preparation for the Summer Olympics that starts on July 23.
The nine-time African champions were grouped in pool ‘A’ of the olympic games alongside Japan, Brazil, Korea, Serbia and Dominican Republic and will kick off their hunt for gold medal at the global showpiece against the hosts on July 26.