体坛英语新闻：Kenyan teams to skip Africa handball clubs championships in Niger

NAIROBI, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Kenya will not take part in this year's Africa Handball Clubs Championship, which starts in Niamey, Niger on Oct. 4-13.

Three Kenyan clubs NPBC, Rising Stars and Strathmore have given up the tournament.

African Handball Confederation (CABH) President Aremou Mansourou said only eight countries have been cleared to contest in the tournament that has attracted 19 teams - nine women's and 10 men's clubs.

Mansourou said the teams will be clustered in two pools for each gender.

"There is no representation from Kenya. However, we have several teams across the continent coming in and we hope to have a good championship in Niamey," said Mansourou on Wednesday.

Alongside host nation Niger, there will be teams from Angola, Senegal, Congo Brazzaville, Guinea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tunisia, Cote d'Ivoire, Algeria and Benin.

Giants Premero de Agosto of Angola is ranked top in Pool A of the women tournament and will battle it out against Congo's DGSP, Heritage (DR Congo) and FAP (Cameroon) and Bandama (Cote d'Ivoire). Petro Atletico, Abo Sport, Evabuka and Atletico de Mindelo will make Group B.

The men's tournament has Egypt's Sporting Club as the top seed together with Inter Club of Angola, Red Star, JSK and Cote d'Ivoire's Atletico de Mindelo.

Pool B has Zamalek of Egypt, Widad Smara of Morocco, Etoile (Congo), FAP of Cameroon and Deportivo de Praia of Cape Verde.

"We have done the draw for the competition on the sidelines of the African Women's Youth Championship in Niamey," said the CABH president.

Africa was using the youth tournament to select its best three teams for the global contest, which will be held in 2020 in China.

Egypt won a third consecutive Africa Youth Championships in Niamey, beating Angola in the final 6-0.

Angola has lost its top position in African younger age categories, having failed to win gold at both U-19s and U-17s this year.

Tunisia clinched bronze edging out Guinea. Egypt, Angola and Tunisia will represent Africa at the 2020 Youth World Championship in China.

The trio will join the 19 top ranked countries in the 24-team competition. They will join hosts China, Hungary, Sweden, France, Denmark, Russia, Norway, Germany, Austria, Montenegro, Czech Republic and Switzerland.

From Asia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and South Korea have made the cut.