National beach volleyball team coach, Ismaila Chukwuma, says eight Nigerian players have qualified for the FIVB World Beach Volleyball Championships scheduled for April in Canada.

Ismail said on Tuesday in Lagos that the players qualified at the CAVB Beach Volleyball Youth Qualifiers held last week in Cotonou, the Republic of Benin.

"Four Nigerian girls won gold at the qualifiers while four boys won bronze. But the eight players qualified Nigeria for the world championships," he said.

The coach said the national team had gone to Benin Republic with 16 players, made up of eight boys and eight girls, in the under-19 and under-21 teams for the qualifiers.

"Our under-19 and under-21 girls did remarkably well by clinching gold medals each while the under-19 and under-21 boys also won a bronze each. (NAN)

"With this, eight of our 16 players qualified for the world event coming up in April in Canada," he said.

NAN reports that hosts Republic of Benin, Cote D'Ivoire and Ghana also featured in the week-long qualifiers which ended on Feb. 24.

Ismail said that with the qualification, preparation for the FIVB championships has commenced immediately.

NAN