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Sunday, February 23, 2025

TTVF names Olympic Beach vball hopefuls

by

Sports Desk
1407 days ago
20210418
T&T's beach volleyballers Daneil Williams, from left, Daynte Stewart, Abby Blackman and Rheeza Grant.

T&T's beach volleyballers Daneil Williams, from left, Daynte Stewart, Abby Blackman and Rheeza Grant.

Paul White

The beach vol­ley­ball Com­mon­wealth Games du­os of Daneil Williams and Daynte Stew­art as well as Rheeza Grant and Ab­by Black­man have been se­lect­ed among two na­tion­al men and women teams each to con­tin­ue prepa­ra­tions for the NORCE­CA Con­ti­nen­tal Olympic Beach Vol­ley­ball Qual­i­fiers.

In a me­dia re­lease from T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion (TTVF) pres­i­dent, Daymi­an Stew­art, fa­ther of USA-based Daynte of In­di­ana Tech In­sti­tute, it was stat­ed that: “The TTVF was very cau­tious in the prepa­ra­tion of its na­tion­al beach vol­ley­ball teams for the up­com­ing Olympic Qual­i­fi­ca­tion semi­fi­nals and fi­nals to be held in Mex­i­co in June due to the on­go­ing coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic."

Nev­er­the­less, the TTVF named its top four ath­letes in each gen­der that will be el­i­gi­ble for Olympic qual­i­fi­ca­tions and re­serves.

Williams and Stew­art are joined by NORCE­CA Tour reg­u­lar and their for­mer play­ing part­ners, Mar­lon Phillip and Joel Theodore while ex-top na­tion­al beach play­er Fa­bi­en Whit­field, who has com­plet­ed an FIVB sus­pen­sion, is named among the re­serves with Stephen Enile, Tevin Ed­wards and Ka­reem Thomas.

This will be Williams sec­ond straight Olympic qual­i­fi­ca­tion bid af­ter he teamed up with Si­mon Blake, Chris­t­ian Fran­cois and Col­in Bernard for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games in Brazil, reach­ing the NORCE­CA Con­ti­nen­tal stage as well in Guay­mas, Mex­i­co.

The women’s team com­pris­es Grant and Black­man as well as La Teisha Joseph and Ma­li­ka David­son, all ex­pe­ri­enced par­tic­i­pants on the NORCE­CA Cir­cuit. The quar­tet of re­serves is led by Suraya Chase and Ap­phia Glas­gow, both NORCE­CA Cir­cuit play­ers as well, and ju­niors Tsyan Selvon, and As­ma Charles.

At the last Olympic Qual­i­fiers in 2016, the trio of Grant, David­son and Black­man were joined by the now-de­ceased Ayan­na Dyette for a sixth-placed fin­ish among eight fi­nal­ists in San Sal­vador, El Sal­vador.

Mean­while, the lo­cal vol­ley­ball fed­er­a­tion al­so named for­mer Se­nior Caribbean Men’s Cham­pi­onship-win­ning coach Sean Mor­ri­son and Ja­son Den­nis as coach­es of the Un­der-23 men and women team for the U-23 Pan Am Games Qual­i­fi­ca­tion Tour­na­ment.

In ad­di­tion, the High-Per­for­mance Unit of the TTVF was giv­en the man­date to have all the ath­letes med­ical­ly eval­u­at­ed with­in the next 14 days.

Ac­cord­ing to Stew­art, the un­cer­tain­ty of trav­el­ling with­in the pan­dem­ic may al­so af­fect the fi­nal se­lec­tion as some ath­letes are fear­ful of be­ing vac­ci­nat­ed.

He added, “The ath­letes’ prepa­ra­tion will now in­ten­si­fy un­der the watch­ful eyes of their pri­vate coach­es."

With re­gards to the coro­n­avirus and ex­ist­ing health and safe­ty pro­to­cols, Stew­art said the TTVF has iden­ti­fied the pro­to­cols to be ob­served: " a) No more than five per­sons in any one train­ing ses­sion; b) Coach­es must wear a mask dur­ing ses­sions; c) No cel­e­bra­to­ry con­tact ges­tures (no hug­ging, high fives, etc.); d) Teams do not change sides of the court as per nor­mal; e) Balls and Nets must be sani­tised be­fore and af­ter every ses­sion; f) Coach­es are to keep on-site a log of all ath­letes at­tend­ing ses­sions with their per­son­al con­tact in­for­ma­tion for con­tact trac­ing; g) No Spec­ta­tors.


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