BEACH VOLLEYBALL TEAMS ANOTHER STEP CLOSER TO LONDON

VOLLEYBALL, JUNE 23, 2012: Australia’s beach volleyballers have advanced to the semi-finals of both the men’s and women’s Continental Cup Finals at Min River Park in Fuzhou – taking another step closer to Olympic qualification.

With world ranked women's pairing Becchara Palmer and Louise Bawden already gaining automatic qualification with their top 16 finish in the Olympic Qualification period, Olympic places await Australia’s next highest ranked teams - Natalie Cook and Tamsin Hinchley in the women’s event and Josh Slack and Chris McHugh in the men.
 
The country v country format in the Continental Cup Finals sees two teams from each federation in each category play off for the final positions in the 24 team Olympic competition and if Australia can win in Fuzhou they will qualify their nominated teams for London.
 
There is one final chance for federations to qualify the final two places in next week’s final Qualifying tournament in Moscow (see Qualification process).
 
In the women’s tournament Australia, China, Kazakhstan and Thailand progressed to today's semi-finals after winning their quarter-final matches yesterday with Australia to play China in today’s semi-final.
 
Australia finished strongly with Sydney Olympics gold medallist Cook and her Beijing partner Hinchley who brought Australia back into the game after a Chinese Taipei blowout in the first match.
 
Kou Nai Han and Chang Hui Min astounded Australia's Mariafe Artacho and Taliqua Clancy 2-0 (21-19, 23-21).

The Australians cruised into the semi-finals however as Cook/Hinchley secured a second match victory.

China made its presence known by beating the admirable Vanuatu team. The latter’s recent performance in various competitions has been highly praised but the Chinese squads proved too much for them.

In the men it was Australia, Indonesia, Japan and China who ousted their respective opponents to advance to the semi-finals with the Aussies to face Indonesia today.

Australia put on a solid performance to oust Kazakhstan. The Australians took advantage of the weary condition the Kazakhs were in following their previous match against New Zealand. McHugh and Slack effortlessly defeated the tandems of Kazakhstan’s Dimitriy Yakovlev and Alexey Kuleshov 2-0 (21-15, 21-14), and Alexandr Dyanchenko and Alexey Sidorenko 2-0 (21-19, 21-16).

The other Australian duo of Sam Boehm and Isaac Kapa faced a good challenge from Dyachenko/Sidorenko until the end of the tiebreaker, but their efforts were good enough to seal the match 2-1 (22-20, 16-21, 16-14).

While Australia and China both aced their matches, Indonesia and Japan had a rougher ride to reach the next round.

LONDON OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION PROCESS
The qualification criteria for Beach Volleyball at the 2012 Olympic Games has undergone a major change with countries rather than individual teams qualifying and the introduction of the Continental Beach Volleyball Cup and the Beach Volleyball World Cup Olympic Qualification Tournament.

In previous Olympics, the top 23 teams on the world rankings plus one host country team (granted) qualified for the Olympic Games. The 2012 edition of the Olympic Qualification system will offer the opportunity to more countries to compete within three types of qualifying tournaments for a quota place at the Olympic Games.

The Beach Volleyball Continental Cup and the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Cup provide a new opportunity for countries to qualify for the Olympic Games, bearing in mind there are a maximum of two vacancies per NOC and 16 vacancies already allocated via the FIVB World Rankings.

A record-breaking total of 142 countries across 62 tournaments have been confirmed to participate in the Continental Beach Volleyball Cup. The first edition of the Continental Beach Volleyball Cup was launched by CEV in July, 2010 in Russia.

The Continental Cup is a country versus country Olympic qualifying event for continents staged from June 25, 2010 to July 1, 2012 and disputed at continental levels (subzone, zone, final). The five winners of the Beach Volleyball Continental  Cup – one from each Continent - will qualify for the Olympics.

The FIVB Beach Volleyball World Cup Olympic Qualification tournament will take place from June 25 to July 1, 2012 and offers two additional Olympic berths for countries which have not qualified through either the world rankings or the Continental Cup.

To be eligible for the 2012 Olympic Games from the World ranking, athletes must have participated in at least 12 events as a team in the FIVB Beach Volleyball Swatch World Championships, the FIVB Beach Volleyball Swatch World Tour and recognised Continental Tour Finals within the Olympic qualification period from January 1, 2011 to June 17, 2012.

To be eligible to qualify through the Beach Volleyball Continental Cup and/or FIVB Beach Volleyball World Cup, and/or Olympic Trials, athletes must have participated as an individual in at least 12 Continental Beach Volleyball Cup, National and/or Continental and/or FIVB events scheduled from June 1, 2010 until June 24, 2012.

Once a vacancy is earned, a NOC/NF can stage National Olympic Trials from July 3-8, 2012 to determine the athletes to participate at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, respecting the athlete technical eligibility requirements.

Issued on behalf of Volleyball Australia by: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.