The Dominican Republic won its first competition in the NORCECA Women’s Olympic qualifying tournament taking place at the Juan Pablo Duarte Olympic Center volleyball pavilion at 6pm and 8pm. The DR defeated Mexico 3-0 (27-17, 25-16 and 25-8). The DR team, ranked 14th in the world, goes up today against Canada, who, on the opening day of the tournament, was defeated by Cuba (25-18, 25-14, 26-24 and 25-19). Only the winning team will gain a berth for next year’s Olympics, where the next highest world-ranked NORCECA team that hasn’t yet qualified will have a second opportunity to compete in the South American Olympic qualifying tournament in January.
Other participants in the tournament consist of Cuba (ranked 6th in the world), Canada (20th), Puerto Rico (17th) and Mexico (35th). The teams will play in a round-robin format from 15 to 21 December, with the top four teams qualifying for the semi-final round. The team with the best record will face the fourth-place side and the second-best team will meet the third-place side to decide the players of the gold-medal match and bestow the chance to represent the Americas in the Olympics, along with the already-qualified USA team. Cuba and the Dominican Republic are considered favourites of the event and the matches are being locally televised for Dominican audiences. The schedule for the tournament is as follows:
15 December: Cuba vs Canada, Dominicana vs Mexico;
16 December: Puerto Rico vs Cuba, Dominicana vs Canada;
17 December: Mexico vs Canada, Dominicana vs Puerto Rico;
18 December: Mexico vs Puerto Rico, Dominicana vs Cuba;
19 December: Puerto Rico vs Canada, Mexico vs Cuba;
20 December: 2nd vs 3rd, 1st vs 4th.
21 December: Match to decide third place, and match for first place and qualification for Olympic Games.