Olympic Qualification Process, success created in NORCECA

Olympic Qualification Process, success created in NORCECA

FAJARDO, Puerto Rico, December 7, 2013 – The stage of Puerto Rico in the NORCECA Qualification process towards the 2014 Youth Olympic Games is the third of the year and two more teams –one per gender- will get tickets to the event in Nanjing, China.

The Central Zone Qualifier will take place on Saturday and Sunday at the Seven Seas Beach of Fajardo.

Four years ago, the president of NORCECA Cristobal Marte Hoffiz had the idea of the Continental Cups accepted by FIVB for the qualification towards the 2012 London Olympic Games and the system was a complete success opening the gates to adopt the same process for the Youth Olympic Games.

“The system is very simple,” explained Arnaldo Sánchez, President of NORCECA Beach Volleyball Commission. “We are organizing four zonal qualifiers with the winners booking spots at the Olympics and a final playoff to give one more opportunity to the small countries to get an Olympic chance.”

The participating teams in Fajardo are hosts Puerto Rico, Canada, United States, Mexico and Dominican Republic.

Thus far, NORCECA has organized the qualification tournaments in the Eastern Caribbean Zone (ECVA) where the boys of St Vincent and the girls of St Lucia grabbed their Olympic spots, and in the Caribbean Zone (CAZOVA) where the winners were Trinidad & Tobago (girls) and Jamaica (boys).

“Since the very beginning the idea is part of our development plan and our motto says it all, ‘Development is the name of the Game’, and that’s our goal,” Marte Hoffiz said from Rwanda. “We have organized two tournaments with the support from Confederation and we are doing it also in Puerto Rico.”

The action serves off on Saturday at 10:00 am (local time) with teams playing under a round-robin format. Then on Sunday the Semifinals and Finals will take place with the traditional crossed matches of 1^st vs 4^th and 2^nd v 3^rd.

The winners in both genders qualify to the Nanjing Games with the second and third placed teams securing places in the final playoff to be held in March.