Most sports fans know, as the slots for the Olympic qualifiers fill in, the competition will begin to heat up. The London Olympics
are just weeks away, so there is no hotter contest than men’s and
women’s beach volleyball. Within this sport, the contest everyone will
have his or her eye on is the Continental Cup Olympic qualifying
tournament happening in Mazatlan, Mexico.
This international match is very important, as the winners of the men’s and women’s Continental Cup
Olympic qualifying tournament earn a berth for the 2012 London Games.
The second and third place teams will head to Moscow for a last chance
Olympic qualifying event. Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico,
Nicaragua and Puerto Rico will field two pairs apiece in both the men’s
and women’s competition.
Fresh off their gold-medal victory at the 2012 Toluca Beach
Volleyball Tournament, Mexico’s Juan Virgen and Lombardo Ontiveros are
the early favorites and will have home court advantage, so expect a
solid performance from the duo. Also, taking full advantage of the
familiar conditions will be fellow Mexicans Virgen and Ontiveros who
also claimed gold-ware at Toluca in the women’s division. Virgen and
Ontiveros gave a convincing performance throughout the tournament and
are sure to be tough competition at Continental Cup.
There are many intangibles that make this Mexican beach volleyball
squad great, yet many point to the chemistry between them, which helped
them to maintain their dominance. These two teams took on tough teams in
earlier in the year, but always finished on the winning side.
In this upcoming tournament, only one team from each of the five FIVB
confederations will qualify for the London 2012 Olympic Games, the
second and third placed teams will go to the FIVB World Cup Olympic
Qualification tournament to playoff for two more Olympic vacancies.
No comments:
Post a Comment