The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

( Jana Ehab: Standing third from the left – Shaza Ayman: seated third from the left) Featured image: Africa Newsroom

It’s hard to keep count of the list of sports in which Egyptian athletes have excelled at over the past months. While people are still hyped on Egypt’s epic victory in the Men’s Youth World Handball Championship, there’s another big piece of news on the basketball front. Did you know that there are two teenage Egyptian girls who are star players in one of the biggest junior teams in the world?

According to NBA Communications, Jana Ehab and Shaza Ayman, 13 and 14-year-old Egyptian basketball players respectively, were listed in the roster of 10 girls representing Africa in the second Jr. NBA Global Championship. It’s a youth basketball tournament for the top 13 and 14-year-old boys and girls teams from 75 countries around the world, that was held on August 6-11 at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida.

They were selected based on basketball clinics and Jr. NBA Programs that had taken place all across the continent, and were then coached under Tanzania’s Bahati Mgunda, and Senegal’s Samba Fall. Be sure to check out the team’s official team picture on their Facebook page, NBA Africa, where you’ll find Jana with the number 32 on her basketball jersey and Shaza Ayman holding the basketball in the center (#5). You can also watch Ehab’s introduction video right here as well as Ayman’s video right here. 

In terms of results, they went on to qualify to the International Pool Semifinals, but sadly their winning streak ended in the final round against the US girls team of Northwest. Despite that, you can definitely tell that both of the girls’ reputations were well-founded, having each scored 11 points, out of 39, in their victory match against China according to the Jr. NBA Global Championship website. We were able to find two clips of the Africa Girls in their previous championship matches where you can see Jana and Shaza live in action and tearing up the court. 

For people who are interested in reading more technical statistics about their games and scores, you can check their profiles on the website.