Volleyball latest: AVC announces the schedule of Beach Volleyball Continental Cup for Oceania Zone
The Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) has announced the schedule of the AVC Beach Volleyball Continental Cup for Oceania Zone today (Thursday, 20th January, 2011). The first sub-zonal beach volleyball tournament will be held from March 2-4,
while Northern Marianas Islands will host the competition. The event will welcome beach volleyball duos from Oceania zone, including the hosts Mariana, Papua New Guinea, Guam and Kiwi pairs from Land-down-under (Australia).
The Federation International de Volleyball (FIVB) introduced this new qualification process for the London 2012 Olympic Games in last September. The new format of FIVB has paved a way for the AVC Continental Cups, which are supposed to feature country versus
country competitions. The participants of sub-zonal tournaments will compete for berths in zonal tournament, which will further promote them in the continental cup finals. The slots in 2012 London Olympic Games would be the ultimate target of the teams.
The first sub-zonal tournament falls in the Oceania zone, while Asian Volleyball Federation will launch similar campaigns in Eastern Zone, Central Zone, Southeastern Zone and Western Zone. The Oceania Zone will have three sub-zonal tournaments but rest of
the zones will feature two tournaments apiece. Additionally, some of the zones will only feature men’s competitions due to their religious affiliation. Nonetheless, the Oceania Zone will stage the double gender events. Top three teams from each Zone will be
promoted in the Continental Cup finals, while the hosts will automatically get a spot in the final round. The final stage of Continental cup will have a total of 16 teams.
The Sub-zonal tournament in Mariana is the first event of Oceania Zone. Following the same pattern, the next sub-zonal tournament will be held in Vanuatu Island in the month of May. The 5-day campaign will be attended by teams from Tuvalu, Fiji, hosts Vanuatu
and Solomon Islands. The tournament will be kicked off on May 17 and it will reach its end on May 21. The Vanuatu event will be followed by third leg of sub-zonal tournament in Samoa from May 23-27. The successful teams from the 2nd and 3rd
sub-zonal tournaments will be able to play in the Zonal tournament.
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