Volleyball manager looks to last eight

GUADALAJARA, Mexico:Manager of Jamaica's beach volleyball team at the XVI Pan American Games, O'Neil Ebanks, expects his male duo to be competitive when men's preliminary-round action starts on Monday in the Pacific Ocean beach resort city of Puerto Vallarta.

Jamaica will be represented in the event by Dellan Brown and Namarie Gordon, and while they are not the two best beach volleyball players that the island can field, Ebanks thinks the pair can do fairly well in Jamaica's first-ever entry in the sport at these Games.

"These are not our two strongest players, but they will be competitive," Ebanks said. He added that the country's best players are based abroad and would have needed time off from work to attend the Games.

A decision was made by the Jamaica Volleyball Association not to invite them for the Pan Am Games competition but to have them available for the Olympic qualifying competition in November, as it would not have been possible to get them for both.

"Olympic qualifiers are coming up at the end of November in Grand Cayman. That's bigger than the Pan American Games. We have never had a Caribbean team in the Olympics, so we are hoping we can make that breakthrough with the more experienced players coming in to strengthen the squad. We will have two teams - the two strongest male and the two strongest females, November 30 to December 15," Ebanks, coach of the national junior male and female teams, said.

high expectations

For this tournament, Ebanks, a member of the management committee of the local volleyball association, who is also doubling here as coach, expects the players to reach at least the last eight pairs.

"They are not very experienced in playing beach volleyball but have been playing hard court, so they are capable of being competitive. I am looking for them to reach the quarter-final round and to take it from there a step at a time," he added.

Sixteen male and 16 female teams will be engaged in the overall competition. The players and manager/coach will take a 50-minute flight out to Puerto Vallarta tomorrow. Competition ends on October 23.