Nigel A Camp­bell

The lo­cal women's pair of Ap­phia Glas­gow and La Teisha Joseph will de­part for Grand Cay­man, Cay­man Is­lands to­day via Ja­maica to com­pete in the women's seg­ment of the 2015 Norce­ca Beach Vol­ley­ball Tour open­er at Sev­en Miles Beach from Fri­day un­til Sun­day.

Glas­gow and Joseph, who have com­pet­ed on the tour in the past, earned T&T's lone avail­able spot to the first stop on this year's NORCE­CA tour af­ter top­ping the five-stage T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion Beach Vol­ley­ball Tour­na­ment Qual­i­fiers ahead of Ayana Dyette and Nan­cy Joseph while El­ki Phillip and Shenelle Gor­don were third.

The pair of Glas­gow and Joseph will al­so be one of two T&T women's team which will con­test the first round of the Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CA­ZO­VA) 2016 Rio Olympics Beach Vol­ley­ball Qual­i­fiers in Ocho Rios Bay Beach, Ja­maica, April 30 to May 5.And ac­cord­ing to coach David Thomas, the lo­cal women will be us­ing the tour­na­ment this week­end in Cay­man Is­lands as part of their prepa­ra­tions for Ja­maica.

Speak­ing on the eve of their de­par­ture, Thomas who along with the pair will overnight in Kingston ahead of de­part­ing for Cay­man Is­lands on Wednes­day morn­ing said the team will be aim­ing for a top ten fin­ish.He added, "The girls had a few prob­lems with re­gards to get­ting to train be­cause of some fi­nan­cial con­straits, and they al­so were lack­ing in some con­fi­dence as they did not feel they were get­ting the full sup­port of every­one in­volve.

"That is now be­hind them and in the fi­nal set of train­ing ses­sions we had be­fore we leave you can see they had re­gained their fo­cus, and I be­lieve once they play to their full po­ten­tial they will be able to rep­re­sent them­selves and T&T well, and fin­ish among the top ten."Our fo­cus is re­al­ly on the Olympic qual­i­fiers the fol­low­ing week­end in Ja­maica, so while we will want to place as high as we pos­si­bly can, our main fo­cus will be on get­ting the team to gel in a very com­pet­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment ahead of the first round Olympic Qual­i­fiers.

The oth­er women's team which will com­pete in the Olympic qual­i­fiers is the pair of Phillip and Gor­don. This af­ter Joseph was forced to with­drew from the lo­cal qual­i­fiers, due to work com­mit­ments, leav­ing Dyette, with­out a team-mate.Dyette re­deemed her­self in the sec­ond phase of the T&TVF qual­i­fiers though as she teamed with World Ju­nior Un­der-21 play­er Ma­li­ka David­son to top the Pan Amer­i­can Games qual­i­fiers.

Last year in Cay­man, Dyette and Joseph end­ed in 11th spot in Cay­man Is­lands from 17 teams.

.....Whit­field, Williams re­turn af­ter two-years ab­sence

To­mor­row (Wednes­day), the top lo­cal men's team of Daneil Williams and Fa­bi­en Whit­field will head for Cay­man Is­lands, but via Mi­a­mi, as they al­so look ahead to the first round of the Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CA­ZO­VA) 2016 Rio Olympics Beach Vol­ley­ball Qual­i­fiers.The CA­ZO­VA men's Olympic Qual­i­fiers are card­ed for the Na­tion­al Beach Vol­ley­ball De­vel­op­ment Cen­tre, here in Trinidad at Saith Park, Ch­agua­nas from May 8-10.

Williams and Whit­field qual­i­fied to com­pete in Cay­man Is­lands with­out drop­ping a match or set in the first phase of the lo­cal fed­er­a­tion's five qual­i­fy­ing tour­na­ments held in Feb­ru­ary and March.They then emerged un­beat­en in the sec­ond phase of qual­i­fiers, four tour­na­ments, be­tween March/April for the Pan Amer­i­can Games to equal a feat of nine straight lo­cal tour­na­ment wins, achieved by Dyette and Joseph from last year to the open­ing tour­na­ment this year.

Un­like, Gor­don and Joseph, the pair of Whit­field and Williams, who won a his­toric Norce­ca Beach Tour bronze medal at Mis­sion Beach, To­co, three years ago have com­pet­ed in Cay­man Is­lands in the past, 2013 to be ex­act.Last year, Un­der-23 duo, Tevin Joseph and Taran­dath De­onath who were prepar­ing for the FIVB World Un­der-23 Cham­pi­onships com­pet­ed in the open­ing leg of the tour while in 2013, Williams paired with Si­mon Blake.

Join­ing Whit­field and Williams in the Olympic qual­i­fiers will be Tevin Joseph and Josi­ah Ec­cles, who end­ed as run­ners-up in both the first and sec­ond stage events host­ed by the T&TVF.