Historic Volleyball Qualifier in St Lucia

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St Lucia’s female Youth Olympic Volleyball qualifiers and Brian Louisy, Prez of the SLVA.
St Lucia’s female Youth Olympic Volleyball qualifiers and Brian Louisy, Prez of the SLVA.

St Lucia claimed the gold medal in the female component of the Eastern Caribbean Volleyball Association (ECVA) Zone of the NORCECA Round of the Youth Olympic Beach Qualification Tournament, and booked a direct place to Nanjing, China in August 2014.

Making the historic leap was the pair of Dala Noel and Skye Mondesir who left their best for when it mattered most and book their country’s passage to the first ever Beach Volleyball at the Youth Olympics.

Noel and Mondesir claimed the title after beating the Grenadian duo of Jomelar Billy and Carsie Paul in the final which was played over a best of three series.

Noel and Mondesir took the first match 2-0 (21-19, 22-20) and romped home in the second also 2-0 (21- 8, 21-0).

Commenting on her team’s turn around, captain Noel stated, “Despite we only trained together once before the tournament, but the preparation was good… We started out rough at the beginning, but we fought it today and it brought us the success”. The pair was put together after an unfortunate injury to Noel’s training partner Nikita Greenidge.

“ We need to now train harder as a team, co-operate together as getting to know your beach partner to know their weaknesses and their strengths”, she noted.

Mondesir in her review said: “I am really happy that we won…I am hoping that I make the trip to China and hope that we will do our best. At the beginning we took a while to get going but we picked up, because we knew we really wanted it. Anytime we set out to get something we go out and get it ….We have a lot of confidence in each other,” Mondesir added.

St Vincent and the Grenadines male duo of Rodell Fraser and Delshun Welcome spiked their way to the top spot in the male segment of the Youth Olympic Beach Qualification Tournament. The pair formalized their unbeaten run in the tournament, in near dominating fashion over Dominica’s Arden Elmes and Yahn Florent, taking both matches in the best of three final series.

There was more history making achievement, as it will be the first time St Vincent and the Grenadines will be represented at the Olympic Games in a team sport.

St Lucia came away with the third spot, taking the two matches at the expense of Grenada. St Lucia won 2-0 (21-12, 21-15) and 2-0 (23-21, 21-13).

But it is not all over for Dominica and St Lucia, as they have another chance at qualification in the second round which begins next year.