Daymi­an Stew­art, chair­man of the T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion Beach Com­mis­sion says the one-year post­pone­ment of the In­ter­na­tion­al Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion (FIVB) Beach Vol­ley­ball World Cham­pi­onship to June 2022 can turn out to be pos­i­tive for this coun­try.

Stew­art, the del­e­gate vice-pres­i­dent of the T&TVF was com­ment­ing on the de­ci­sion by FIVB to de­lay of the stag­ing of the event which was orig­i­nal­ly pro­grammed for June 2021, in Rome, Italy.

The change made by the FIVB came fol­low­ing the post­pone­ment of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games for one year due to the coro­n­avirus COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

In a re­lease on the NORCE­CA web­site, con­fed­er­a­tion pres­i­dent, Cristo­bal Marte Hof­fiz in­formed that the re-sched­ul­ing of the FIVB World Cham­pi­onship nec­es­sar­i­ly af­fects the con­fed­er­a­tion’s date lim­it to ac­cu­mu­late points as it will have an im­pact on its qual­i­fi­ca­tion sys­tem and points grant­ed.

Marte Hof­fiz not­ed that ac­cord­ing to the 2019 NORCE­CA rank­ings the top-8 men’s teams are USA, Nicaragua, Cana­da, Méx­i­co, Guatemala, Cu­ba, T&T and Puer­to Ri­co while for the women the top-8 women are USA, Cana­da, Cu­ba, Nicaragua, Méx­i­co, Guatemala, El Sal­vador and Cos­ta Ri­ca.

"And based on the qual­i­fi­ca­tion for­mat of the World Cham­pi­onship, NORCE­CA has six va­can­cies in the “main draw” and four oth­er teams have the op­tion of play­ing in the qual­i­fy­ing phase and to qual­i­fy the NORCE­CA rank­ings to be con­sid­ered will be that up to De­cem­ber 31, 2021, so teams will have up un­til that time to boost their rank­ings, " said Marte Hof­fiz.

Com­ment­ing on the de­lay of the World Cham­pi­onships on Thurs­day, Stew­art said, "This will no doubt work in our favour as it will pro­vide our teams with the chance to climb up the NORCE­CA rank­ings.

As part of the process to gain rank­ing points for the FIVB World Cham­pi­onship the T&T teams are ex­pect­ed to com­pete on the NORCE­CA Beach Tour, which has al­so been af­fect­ed by the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic with the first three legs be­ing can­celled or post­poned al­ready, in­clu­sive of Aguas­calientes in Mex­i­co (April 16-19), Va­radero in Cu­ba (April 30-May 4) and Pun­ta Cana in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic (May 6-11).

The oth­er legs yet to come off in­cludes Nicaragua (May 20-25), La Paz, Mex­i­co (May 28-31), St Kitts (June 19-22), Aguas­calientes in Mex­i­co (Ju­ly 9-13), Pun­ta Cana (Au­gust 13-17), and two events in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic (Oc­to­ber 1-5) and No­vem­ber (5-9).

Last month it was al­so stat­ed that due to a lack of fund­ing from NORCE­CA the Beach Tour stops in the Cay­man Is­lands (Sep­tem­ber 24-28) and Ja­maica (No­vem­ber 12-16) were ex­pect­ed to be can­celled al­to­geth­er.

How­ev­er, those two events along with one in Bonaire, which host­ed for the first time last year may re­turn to the cal­en­dar and Stew­art ad­mit­ted that the lo­cal teams were ex­pect­ed to have a busy beach sched­ule for the year.

Apart from the NORCE­CA Tour legs the Beach Vol­ley­ball In­ter-Zon­al Con­ti­nen­tal Cup in Nicaragua, a semi­fi­nal round qual­i­fi­er to the NORCE­CA Fi­nal Round Olympic Games card­ed for March 19-23 was al­so post­poned and ten­ta­tive­ly resched­uled to Au­gust.

"This will for the least pro­vide us with the chance to strength­en our teams if we choose too, should the qual­i­fiers come off in the next three months," said Stew­art.

"We were prepar­ing Rheeza Grant, La Teisha Joseph, Ab­by Black­man and Ap­phia Glas­gow for the women's team.

"But, now we will al­so have the op­tion of ex­pe­ri­enced play­er Ma­li­ka David­son who is com­ing off of in­jury as well as Saraya Chase while we are al­so hope­ful of get­ting Phyle­cia Arm­strong back in­to the fold," added Stew­art

Stew­art point­ed out that the men's team will al­so ben­e­fit due to the in­clu­sion of some key play­ers in the pool for se­lec­tion, who oth­er­wise would not have been avail­able.

"We pre­vi­ous­ly se­lect­ed the quar­tet of Daneil Williams and Joel Theodore along with the in-ex­pe­ri­enced duo of Stephen Enile and Kurt Ed­wards to com­pete, but due to the post­pone­ment of the In­ter-Zon­al qual­i­fiers, we will now have the op­tions of Daynte Stew­art and Mar­lon Phillip, who were both un­avail­able along with the for­mer top play­er and NORCE­CA Tour medal win­ner, Fa­bi­en Whit­field.
Stew­art added, "Whit­field will be avail­able to us as his four-year ban from FIVB should come to an end on May 22, and we are de­light­ed to have him as an op­tion, be­cause he was once part of a very for­mi­da­ble duo with Williams, and we know what they are ca­pa­ble of do­ing."

For the qual­i­fiers in Nicaragua, the T&T men will com­pete with US Vir­gin Is­lands, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lu­cia, Guatemala and the host coun­try from which three teams will qual­i­fy to the NORCE­CA fi­nal round where they will meet Cu­ba, Mex­i­co and one Cana­di­an team for the lone spot avail­able to the Olympics.

In the women's seg­ment, T&T, US Vir­gin Is­lands, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lu­cia, Cos­ta Ri­ca and the host coun­try are the com­pet­ing na­tions from which four teams will qual­i­fy to the NORCE­CA fi­nal round where they will meet Cu­ba and, Mex­i­co.

Al­ready, Cana­da and USA have qual­i­fied two women teams to the Olympics while the USA has earned two men's tick­ets and Cana­da one.