Algerian women in steady steps before the Olympics Algeria waited more than 4 decades to emerge at the international level in the Women’s volleyball when they qualified to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games for the first time in their history. Since Algeria Volleyball federation was established in 1964 the Women’s Algerian volleyball was at the shadow of Men’s volleyball as the Men's category emerged at the African level since the start of the African Nations Championship in 1967 when they won the silver medal of the newly born competition only three years after the federation was registered to FIVB. The cause of the delayed emergence of the women volleyball in Algeria was related to the less interest in terms of financial and technical support in comparison with the men teams as the men usually get the greater support while the women teams practice only locally without having the chance to compete in the international competitions. The Algerian volleyball emerged again at the men's level in the fifth and sixth African Nations championship in 1983 and 1987 when they won the bronze medal in both competitions before the appearance of the Golden generation that won twice the African Nations championship in 1991 and 1993. During this period Algeria used the opportunity of organizing the third All Africa Games in 1978 to constitute a team that succeeded surprisingly to win the Gold medal of the Women volleyball competition that was the first ever for the Algerian women. When the current board of administration took over the responsibility at the start of this century they gave equal interest for both men and women volleyball that allowed the younger generations to compete at the African level and hence to have the opportunity to compete at the bigger FIVB competitions. The great interest resulted in a competitive Youth and junior teams that succeeded to win the African Junior championships in 2000 and 2002 and most of these players were the nucleus of the first team that showed the best performance in the following years. Those young players have got the international experience through the participation in the 2001 and 2003 Women's Junior World championships in Dominican Republic and Thailand respectively. In the 2003 All Africa Games in Abuja, Nigeria the Algerian women team qualified to the semifinal and finished fourth between the big forces, but left a big impression that the Algerian volleyball is coming sooner or later at the top level. The number of registered women volleyball players increased a lot in the following years due to the big support of the federation and also the competition in the local league that includes 8 teams and also the second division that includes the same number of clubs. The improvement was reflected to the Algerian clubs that participated regularly in the African club competitions. In 2007 the Algerian women's team with the full experienced players like the setter Fatima Okazi, the center Lydia Oloumou and the strong wing spiker Faiza Tsabet emerged in All Africa Games and go successfully towards the gold medal of the competition beating Cameroon in the final. Two months later Algeria women achieved their best ever result in the African Nations Championship in Kenya when they finished second to the host team Kenya. Early this year Algeria women won the women's African Olympic qualifications in their homelands to qualify for the first time in their history to the Olympic Games after beating the main African force at the women level Kenya.