Olympic beach volleyball draw decided
July 31, 2008
In Lausanne on July 30 the teams to play in the Beijing Olympic beach volleyball tournament found out who they will face in first round action.
The tournament is to be held at the impressive 12,000 seat stadium in Chaoyang Park.
Both gold medallists from the Athens Olympics will be in Beijing to defend their title. USA’s Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh will open their defence with a match against Japan’s Mika Teru Saiki and Chiaki Kusuhara on Sunday, August 10, at 09:00 Beijing time. The men’s gold medallists Emanuel and Ricardo of Brazil serve it up against Angola’s Emanuel Fernandes and Morais Abreu on Saturday, August 9, at 13:00 local time.
After having been in Beijing for a day I can say it will be tough work for the beach volleyballers. The humidity will make for a sticky situation on the Chaoyang Park sands.
The Sydney Olympics women’s champion Natalie Cook will team up with her new partner Tamsin Barnett to take on Russian pairing of Uryadova and Shiryaeva.
Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh will be tested by some of the Chinese pairings who will be hoping to use the home court advantage to lift their play to a higher level and claim gold as did Pottharst and Cook in Sydney.
In the men’s event it will likely be a USA team or a Brazilian pairing who claim gold. Rogers-Dalhausser were the top team in the Olympic qualifying list. They play Samoilovs and Plavins from Latvia in their first match.
I have tickets for one session of beach volleyball so I am looking forward to checking out the action then.
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