Nigel Si­mon

This coun­try's men and women's beach vol­ley­ball teams will be­gin their his­toric quest to be the first na­tion­al teams to qual­i­fy for the Olympic Games when they com­pete in their re­spec­tive first round of the Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CA­ZO­VA) 2016 Rio Olympics Beach Vol­ley­ball Qual­i­fiers.

The T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion will play host to the 28-team (two pairs of two per coun­try) men's qual­i­fiers at the Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Cen­tre, Saith Park, Ch­agua­nas from May 8-10 at the end of which the top four teams will ad­vance to the sec­ond round of qual­i­fiers which will in­volve the top four teams from the East­ern Caribbean Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion first round qual­i­fiers as well.

This was stat­ed by Mush­taque Mo­hammed, pres­i­dent of CA­ZO­VA at the of­fi­cial launch of the T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion's host­ing of the first round of men's qual­i­fiers at the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee Of­fice, Aber­com­bry Street, yes­ter­day.

Mush­taque Mo­hammed, pres­i­dent of CA­ZO­VA and the ap­point­ed tour­na­ment di­rec­tor for the tour­na­ment at Saith Park, said that be­ing a na­tion­al of T&T he was hap­py to state that FIVB, NORCEA and the re­gion­al body was hap­py to pro­vide all the nec­es­sary sup­port of the T&TVF to put on a tremen­dous tour­na­ment.

Mo­hammed not­ed T&T has man­aged to qual­i­fied beach vol­ley­ball teams to the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Games in the past, the up­com­ing Pan Amer­i­can Games in Cana­da and al­so at the World Cham­pi­onship youth lev­el for, and the lone miss­ing tour­na­ment and most pres­ti­gious was the Olympic Games.

He added, "I be­lieve the beach vol­ley­ballers can be the first team sport to qual­i­fy for the Olympic Games from T&T, how­ev­er, it's not go­ing to be easy, be­cause the road gets much more dif­fi­cult as you progress to the oth­er rounds.

"So as a na­tion­al of T&T, you will have my sup­port and that of the in­ter­na­tion­al body, but no favours will be guar­an­teed," Mo­hammed stressed.

Daymi­an Stew­art, pres­i­dent T&TVF ex­plained the rea­son for host­ing the event was to cre­ate a greater aware­ness of the fastest grow­ing sport in the world, in ad­di­tion to giv­ing the lo­cal teams a good boost and in keep­ing with the Gov­ern­ment's ob­jec­tives to de­vel­op sport tourism, pro­mote our unique cul­ture, em­pow­er our hu­man re­sources and sup­port the pos­i­tive tal­ents of the youth.

With re­gards to qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the fourth and fi­nal stage of the qual­i­fiers which will in­volve the top teams in the en­tire NORCEA Con­fed­er­a­tion, Daymi­an Stew­art, pres­i­dent T&TVF said the lo­cal teams pos­sess six of the sev­en key el­e­ments to get the job done.

How­ev­er, Stew­art not­ed what was now need­ed was the sup­port for the ath­letes which need­ed to be ad­dress ur­gent­ly.

In an­oth­er T&TOC Pres­i­dent, Bri­an Lewis ap­plaud­ed the T&TV for the di­rec­tion it has tak­en in de­vel­op­ing the sport and its ef­fort to gen­er­ate rev­enue.

Lewis said, "We need to be cre­ative and mar­ket sport in T&T in dif­fer­ent ways, and the T&TVF has to be com­mend­ed for their ef­forts be­cause qual­i­fy­ing for an Olympic Games is ab­solute­ly im­por­tant if you are se­ri­ous about elite sport, whether your are a top ath­lete, man­ag­er or of­fi­cial."

With re­spect to the host­ing of the event, Lewis urged the lo­cal fed­er­a­tion to do all in its pow­er to make home ad­van­tage be of ben­e­fit to the T&T team.

"When your are host­ing its a very se­ri­ous thing and its done to make a dif­fer­ence to your team and this is some­thing we need to change else it makes no sense if we are not 150 per cent about it"

In this re­gard, Lewis urged vol­ley­ball fol­low­ers and lo­cals to come out in full sup­port for the team.

The round one women's qual­i­fy­ing takes place first in Ocho Rios Bay Beach, Ja­maica, April 30 to May 5 with the 28-teams (two pairs of two per coun­try) com­pet­ing for four spots to the next round of qual­i­fiers.

Par­tic­i­pat­ing coun­tries and teams to date

Aru­ba: Elmer­lin­do Rob­les De Med­i­na, Dwayne An­gela, Fran­sua An­gela, Michael­lo Mar­til­ia

Bar­ba­dos: Daran Gill, Shel­don Roach, Win­ston Git­tens, El­wyn Ox­ley.

Ba­hamas: Re­nal­do Knowles, Mul­let Pe­tit, Princ­tanique Wil­son, By­ron Fer­gu­son

Bonaire: Not yet sub­mit­ted

Cay­man Is­lands: Kirk Shervin Rankin, Richard Camp­bell, Ol­ney Thomp­son, Phillippe Des Lan­des

Cu­ra­cao: Der­win Col­i­na, Quin­ten An­tho­ny, No­randy Bonafa­sia, Ki­ran Er­sil­ia

Guade­loupe: Arnouts Bap­tiste, Lavoye Cedric, Guil­laume Coude­vylle, Loic Couchy

Haiti: Senel Volvick Dupuy, Alex­is Mar­co, Fritz-Em­manuel Mabou, Kem­pes Vil­mot

Ja­maica: Mark Lewis, Dono­van Lar­ry Richards, Ryck Mc Ken­zie-Webb, Christo­pher Wal­ters

Mar­tinique: Lopes Jef­fer­son, Lowin­sky Edouard, Africa Fred­dy, Lien­afa Derek

Suri­name: Not Yet sub­mit­ted

T&T: Fa­bi­en Whit­field, Daneil Williams, Tevin Joseph, Josi­ah Ec­cles

T&T women team:

La Teisha Joseph, Ap­phia Glas­gow, El­ki Phillip, Shenelle Gor­don