This year’s beach volleyball competition will be played in phases, the executive secretary of the Rwanda Volleyball federation has confirmed.

"This year, the beach volleyball competition will be played in phases just like the national championship,” Gertrude Kubwimana said recently of the MTN sponsored event.

"Beach volleyball is growing into a popular world sport, so the idea is to try and popularize it and maybe have Rwandans competing at the top level in the future,” she noted.

Since 2003 when the first competitive tournament was played, the event has always been a two-day event. However, this year, the event has been spread over five weekends. The first phase is scheduled to start on August 2-3 in Kibuye.

Phase two will be held in Butare on August 9-10, phase three will be held in Kigali August 17-18 while the last two phases will be held in Gisenyi (August 23-24 and 30-31).

The tournament is open to both sexes and Kubwimana said that registration is already on and that draws would be held before the end of this month.

Beach volleyball became an Olympic sport in 1996 and since then Brazil, USA, and Australia have won the gold medals. Meanwhile, the national volleyball championship is set to resume next month.

The event has been forced into a break after the official schools break-off.

"There are a couple of secondary school clubs in the championship so we can’t go on with it at the moment,” Kubwimana added.

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