LIFES A BEACH FOR COOK AND HINCHLEY AT HORSE GUARDS PARADE
Four-time Olympian Natalie Cook and her Beijing partner Tamsyn Hinchley will be one of two Australian teams who will contest this week’s 2012 Olympic Games Beach Volleyball Test event, in London’s historic Horse Guards Parade, starting tomorrow, August 9.
Apart from the famous venue, it is also historic for the sport of beach volleyball, which will make its debut in the Olympic city, just under a year before the start of next year’s Olympics.
And is sure to be enough to add an extra spark of enthusiasm for the Australians – particularly Cook, who has her sights set on a record fifth Olympics.
The recently re-united Cook and Hinchley, fifth in Beijing, have come together in recent tournaments on the FIVB World Tour, chasing all-important points for Olympic qualification and although this is an invitation test event it will serve as vital match practice.
Cook and Hinchley will be joined by emerging AIS pair Taliqua Clancy and Eliza Hynes in what will be an exciting introduction to the experience of an Olympic test event for the youngsters, regarded as outstanding prospects, who have their sights set on Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
The six-day Visa FIVB Beach Volleyball International is an intercontinental women’s exhibition tournament featuring 24 teams jointly decided by the FIVB and LOCOG and will follow the Olympic Games format.
The 24 teams will be competing in six pools, with four teams per pool played over three days with the semi-finals and final matches will be played on Sunday, August 14.
Australia’s most experienced pairing will be hoping it’s a case of third-time lucky after starting back last season before both linking up with different partners, Cook with noted Indoor player Tara West and Hinchley with Manly’s AIS-based Alice Rohkamper.
Both teams failed to win a single round robin match at this year’s World Championships in Italy prompting team changes for the athletes Olympic aspirations.
“I knew that if I was to have the best chance at winning a medal in London 2012 Tamsin and I needed to team up as soon as possible,” Cook told Olympics.com.au in a recent interview.
“When you put your hand up to say ‘I want to win another gold at the Olympics’, there is an enormous commitment required behind it to do whatever it takes. So the change was essential for the dream of five Olympics and another medal to become a reality.
“Time was running out and with the qualification process so challenging physically, mentally and emotionally, we needed to have the best support around us. The best time to make the change was post Italy (World Championships).”
TOURNAMENT FORMAT
Each pairing will be split into one of six pools containing four teams.
Through a round-robin format the two best teams of each pool, plus two best third ranked teams in the pools, will directly advance to the round of 16.
The other two vacancies will be determined by Lucky Loser matches between the remaining four third ranked teams. A knock-out format will then follow through to the finals.
There will be a total of five courts – one centre court, two warm up courts and two training courts.
