By David Gold

Algeria volleyballFebruary 11 - Algeria joined hosts Great Britain, Italy, the United States and China in qualifying for the women's volleyball tournament at London 2012 after winning the African qualifying event.

Algeria beat reigning African champions Kenya with a 3-1 victory at the Tchaker Blida Hall in Algeria in front of 5,000 spectators.

"The win came thanks to the sacrifice and good work of all the players who made good preparations," Algeria coach George Strumelo said.

"Now we will celebrate this qualification before beginning to prepare for the 2012 London Olympics to [put on] a good show."

The result means Algeria will be at their second successive Olympic Games while Egypt thrashed Seychelles in the third-place play-off at the three-day tournament.

Kipkemei Sirma, the vice-chairman of the Kenyan Volleyball Federation (KVF), has said that they would need to look at the lessons they could learn from defeat.

"Algeria stayed out of continental volleyball for close to five years while building a new team and now they have got results, the KVF intends to go the same way," he told Standard Media.

"The KVF wish to praise the current generation of national team players for taking the country to where it is now.

"We want to encourage them to venture into coaching as we look forward to injecting new blood into the team."

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