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MANILA, Philippines -- It?s a long, rough road to Beijing for the RP beach volleyball bets.
Ranked 34th and needing to perform well in only 12 legs of the 2008 World Tour, Heidi Ilustre and Diane Pascua face a very difficult task in their bid to make the cut for the August Olympics.
With 674 points so far, the Fil-Am combination, who started their Olympic quest by vying in the 2007 World Tour, needs to come up with deep runs into the first four tournaments they will join for the year.
They will be in Australia in February, Shanghai on April 29-May 3, Seoul on May 13-18 and Osaka May 20-25. If they manage to reach the main draw of each tournament and make it to the top 17, Ilustre and Pascua would qualify for the Grand Slam events.
?They could qualify in the four Grand Slam events which will earn them double points (in the Olympic roster),? said patron Tony Boy Liao.
With only the top 32 in the world invited, the Grand Slam events will be played in Berlin on June 9-14, Paris on June 16-21, Stavanger, Norway on June 23-28 and Moscow, June 30-July 5.
Liao said the official Olympic roster will be announced on July 22 in Switzerland with the outcome of the legs expected to dictate the composition of the Beijing 2008 field.
?We are planning to be in Adelaide for maybe two weeks before the start of the event. After the Adelaide event, they will participate in Thailand for two Asian events from April 7 to 16,? added Liao.
He said that Ilustre and Pascua, bronze medalists in the 2005 Southeast Asian Games and 2006 Doha Asian Games, were frustrated by their performance in the recent Thailand SEA Games.
?It was really frustrating to have been booted out in the quarterfinals by an unseeded Indonesian team in the last SEA Games,? Liao said.
?Our girls were even seeded No. 2 in that event. Anyway, it doesn?t end there, our Beijing Olympic qualification still will go on,? he added.
Ilustre and Pascua are now in California for the FIVB World Tour Olympic Qualifying break.
They will begin their rigid training on the third week of January in Los Angeles and start competing again in the first leg of the 2008 FIVB World Tour which will be held from March 24 to 29 in Adelaide, Australia.
