VOLLEYBALL - BEACH: 32 of the best beach volleyball teams in Asia have arrived in Cairns in Australia and are ready to put everything on the line this weekend as they bid for one of the last remaining spots at the Rio Olympics.
The 2016 Asian Continental Olympic qualifier has one women’s spot and one men’s spot in Brazil up for grabs.
Australia will be the top seeds in both the men’s and women’s competition, with three-time Asian champions Chris McHugh and Isaac Kapa, and World U23 champions Nikki Laird and Mariafe Artacho Del Solar, likely to be the events top seeds.
But the Chinese pairing of Chen Xue and Xinyi Xia will be very hard to beat in Cairns, following their impressive win over Laird and del Solar at the Asian Championships at Manly Beach earlier this year.
Xue is a two-time Olympian and a bronze medallist from the 2008 Olympics, and a 2013 World Champion. She and Xia did not drop a set for the entire Asian Championships at Manly Beach.
Another team expected to do well this weekend will be the Vanuatu pair of Matauatu and Pata, who only missed automatic qualification for Rio by one place.
Japan’s Take and Mizoe, and Kazakhstan’s Mashkova and Tsimbalova, also boast high world rankings.
In the men’s draw, Qatar’s Jefferson and Cherif are dangerous, while Kazakhstan’s Sidorenko and Dyachenko have had good results on the World Tour.
And New Zealand’s Watson and O’Dea have a good record playing in Australia.
Under the format of the Continental qualifiers each country will have two teams competing. If the games are locked at one-all after the first two match-ups, a ‘golden’ game decider will be played between two teams nominated by each country.
The teams competing in Cairns;
MEN:
- Australia
- Qatar
- Kazakhstan
- China
- New Zealand
- Japan
- Iran
- Indonesia
WOMEN:
- Australia
- China
- Kazakhstan
- Japan
- Thailand
- Vanuatu
- Indonesia
- Taipei
Ross Solly
Volleyball Australia
