Natalie Cook and Tamsin Barnett have achieved Australia’s best result in six years on the Beach Volleyball circuit winning gold in Korea and edging closer to the Beijing Olympic Games.

Cook and Barnett beat China’s number one women’s team Jie Wang and Jia Tian 2 – 0 (21-19, 21-19) in the 2007 SWATCH-FIVB World Tour event in Seoul.

This was only their third start together on the World Tour. The Aussies had finished seventh and ninth in their first two international events in China and Singapore last month. In addition to earning her 26th FIVB medal, Cook was named the Seoul Open’s most outstanding player.

The girls won six-straight over the last four days to improve their season match mark to 31-5, including 18-1 on the Australian domestic tour, and defeated four of the top five-seeded teams.

"In addition to our training with good coaching, I think Natalie's experience has really helped me," the 27-year old Barnett said after the title match. Cook credited Barnett’s “blocking” as an important factor in winning the gold medal.

Barnett, who captured three of the four Australian domestic events earlier this year with Cook, also collected her biggest Beach Volleyball pay cheque, having never finished higher than ninth in a SWATCH event in her previous two seasons of international competition.

The Seoul Open was also the third qualifying event for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. The process runs through to July 20, 2008 to determine the 24-teams. A team’s best eight finishes from SWATCH FIVB World Tour events and FIVB-recognized Continental Championship Finals will be counted.

After three-straight events in Asia, the women’s SWATCH-FIVB World Tour begins a stretch of 11 stops in the next 12 weeks in Europe starting Tuesday in Poland for the second annual GE Money Bank Warsaw Open.

After a three-week break, the men’s FIVB circuit resumes play this coming week with the VIP Open in Zagreb, Croatia.

Andrew Reid

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