BY JULIUS MBARAGA
FERWABA is not prepared to make the same mistake twice. The local basketball federation is already working round the clock to make sure that the national women basketball team puts up a much better display in the upcoming Fiba Africa Women championship.
The event, which also counts as Africa’s premier women basketball competition is slated for October 9-18 in Madagascar.
To start with, the team’s head coach Kavedzija Vaceslav has summoned 13 players to start non-residential training at Amahoro’s indoor stadium.
The pre-selected squad is expected to be beefed up by four foreign-based players.
“He (Vaceslav) will start with 13 players but we expect four more to join the squad in one or two weeks,” the Ferwaba president Eric Kalisa Salongo revealed.
Ferwaba learnt a pricey lesson in the just ended Libya 2009 Afrobasket when the team struggled because of inadequate preparations.
“We don’t want to make the same mistake twice. Just like the national men’s team, we have a good women team but we need to prepare them well if we want them to fire in Madagascar,” another Ferwaba official added.
Rwanda is one of twelve teams vying for the title. Some of the others include defending champions Mali, nine-time record champions Senegal, Angola, Mozambique, Cameroon, South Africa and hosts Madagascar among others.