#RoadToTokyo: Tunisia claim Olympic Games ticket!

2 min read

11 January 2020 Nathan

After France, who won European qualifiers, also Tunisia will play at the Tokyo Olympic Games after beating Algeria in four sets.
Although there is one more match on the tournament’s schedule to be played between Cameroon and Egypt on Saturday, Friday’s clash between neighbours Tunisia and Algeria was the real final of the African qualifier played in Cairo, Egypt, as depending on the score one of the two teams would earn a journey to Tokyo 2020.
While Algeria needed a straight-set victory to book the Olympic ticket, winning one set would have been sufficient for Tunisia to top the final standings. The match was solved in the very first set, but coach Antonio Giaccobe’s team went on to claim a four sets win and triumph as tournament winner undefeated.
In fact, the third set of this match was the only one they lost at the competition. Hamza Nagga was the top scorer of the match with 23. Nagga himself with 5 and Omar Agrebi with 6 six piled up a combined total of 11 stuff blocks towards Tunisia’s victory. Toufik Mahdjoubi was Algeria’s top scorer with 21 points.

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Tunisia coach Antonio Giacobbe was happy to win again but had been aiming to win the tournament without dropping a set: “I asked my players to play as if they needed to win in straight sets to qualify for the Olympics. I asked them to play aggressively like they did against Egypt yesterday.
I’m happy to claim the Olympic ticket, but now we have a lot to do before the Olympic Games to represent Africa in the best way.
Again I’m happy for my players who applied my strategy and succeeded in stopping the Algerian attacks through our solid block.”

Algeria Coach Krimo Bernaoui said: “Tunisia deserved to earn the ticket to the Olympic games. I congratulate Tunisia, they really deserve to qualify for the Olympics, they played without making errors and they know how to run the game. I think all the teams here were of the same level, but Tunisia knows how to control a game.
I am satisfied with my team in the qualifiers. We came here and knew the levels of the other teams. Tunisia was the most organized team in the end.
We must learn to prepare for future participations. Algeria is not far from its competitors and we have to play at a high level to be able to win in the future.”