Egypt's women's beach volleyball has won a place in the Rio Olympics after winning the CAVB Women's Continental Cup held in Nigeria. Egypt beat Rwanda in the final 2-1. Egypt had qualified for the final after beating Morocco, Namibia and Mozambique in the group stage, then stunning Nigeria, the hosts and All-African Games gold medalists, 2-1 in the semi-final. With the victory, Doaa Al-Ghobashi, Nada Moawad , Lamees Noseir and Randa Radwan secured the African spot in the Summer Games. The participating teams were Egypt, Ghana, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Morocco. Egypt pulled off arguably the most extraordinary CAVB Continental Cup victory of all time, stunning Rwanda's players with their sneaky shots to put a quick end to the final match, crushing their opponents 2-1. Egypt had already reached Rio after defeating hosts Nigeria in the semi-final. It was the night Egypt removed the crown from beach volleyball royalty. They did so with their own version of the beautiful game and, by the time they had finished, Nigeria had suffered a humiliation that was so extreme and implausible it felt as though a black marker pen had been taken to the pages of their volleyball history. The All-African Games gold medalists started outstandingly with their team beating Egypt 2-0 (21-15, 21-15), however, the result was not favourable for the host in the other game which the North Africans won 2-1 (19-21, 21-19, 10-15). The semi-final was decided on the golden match and the hosts were humiliated 2-0 (21-12, 21-18). This was not a team losing. It was a dream dying. It was merely the final act of a match that will be forever remembered by all who witnessed it, and which leaves Nigeria's players to wallow in misery and Egypt to celebrate. After the victory, Howeida Mandi, CAVF manager said, “It is a great achievement that proves that the Egyptians are there and they can do it if they want. The players did their best and were able to crush a challenging team as Nigeria. I really appreciate their performance.” The Rio 2016 Olympic Games will include a total of 24 teams per gender. Qualification places are allocated to national federations and not teams, with each national federation allowed to have a maximum of two teams representing them per gender. As hosts, Brazil is guaranteed one qualification berth per gender. The national federation of the winners from the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships will also be granted a berth. As this was Brazil in both the men's (Alison Cerutti and Bruno Schmidt) and women's (Agatha Bednarczuk and Barbara Seixas) tournaments, it means the hosts have reached the maximum quota of Olympic places allowed. The 15 highest ranked teams on the Olympic ranking as of 13 June 2016 will each earn one quota place for their national federation to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, respecting the maximum of two quota places per national federation. Each team must have participated in a minimum of 12 official FIVB Olympic qualification tournaments as an individual should they wish to be selected by a qualified national federation.
