The Dominican Republic Women’s Volleyball Team, ranked 14th in the world, will go up against Cuba, ranked 6th in the world, on 1 November, the opening day of the World Volleyball Cup 2003 in Tokyo, Japan. The top three teams earn the right to compete in the Athens Olympic 2004 Games. This is the first time the Dominican team is to participate in the World Cup. The Dominican squad defeated Cuba for the gold medal in the August 2003 Pan Am Games, but narrowly lost to the Cubans in the NORCECA’s Women’s Continental Championship tournament, also held in Santo Domingo. The Tokyo event is a single round-robin to be played by the rally-point scoring system. The Dominican team games will be aired live on RNN, Channel 27 and Ame, Channel 47. At 8:00pm game highlights will be reported on Ame.
The opponents and dates for the Dominican team’s match-up schedule Japan is as follows: Cuba (1 Nov), Poland (2 Nov), Brazil (5 Nov), Turkey (6 Nov), Italy (8 Nov), Japan (9 Nov), USA (10 Nov), Korea (13 Nov), Egypt (14 Nov), Argentina (15 Nov).
To train for the event, the Dominican team arrived early in Japan, where it will play against local university teams to adjust to the atmosphere and fully recover from jet lag. The Dominican team hopes to defeat 5 of the 12 of its contenders, said coach Jorge Garbey.
Garbey also explained that the World Cup is seen as preparation for the continental Olympic qualifier to be played in Santo Domingo from December 16-22. He explained that if USA or Cuba make the top three in Japan, the Dominican team would battle the other remaining teams for another chance to qualify for the Olympics.
The Dominican Republic is entering the World Cup as a wildcard after winning the gold medal in the Pan American Games and grabbing the bronze in the Norceca Continental Championship, both events played in Santo Domingo. They were also runner-ups in the Pan American Cup in Saltillo, Mexico and are the Central American and Caribbean champions. Tomorrow night, however, they will be making their World Cup debut against Cuba in what promises to be an excellent match-up. These two teams have played each other four times this year with two victories apiece. Three of the matches stretched to five sets.
http://www.fivb.org/EN/Volleyball/.
To follow the Japan championship online, see http://www.fivb.org and http://www.v-spirit.com/