No Canadian Women Destined for Beijing
Toronto’s Dana Cooke and Annie Martin (Sherbrooke, QC) and have failed to qualify for Beijing. The pair needed to place top 2 this week in the final qualification tournament on the FIVB World Tour in Marseille, France in order to have a chance to qualify. Unfortunately they came up short, losing to Fernandez Grasset-Larrea Peraza of Cuba 21-16, 21-13 and to Saka-Rtvelo from Georgia 21-18, 15-21, 15-9 to finish in 25th place. This ends a disappointing 2008 Olympic Qualification period for Canada’s Martin and Cooke as they were not able to move into Olympic contention after finishing the 2007 season in 25th position. That is just one spot out of Olympic qualification which is based on a team’s best top 8 results in 2007 and 2008.
Annie and Dana will return to Toronto where they will compete in the Beach Volleyball National Championships at Ashbridge’s Bay in Toronto, August 29-31st. Cooke is looking to win her first ever National Championship while Martin is looking to repeat her gold medal performance in 2006.
Men’s main draw competition starts today, July 17th, as Canada’s number one team Toronto’s Mark Heese and Ahren Cadieux will make a last attempt at qualifing for the Beijing Olympics. Heese and Cadieux need at least a 9th place finish.
