Alas, the World Tour is back to traveling the world.
For three weeks, the Olympic race was held in a single bubble in Cancun, Mexico, a swirling, hot and humid back-to-back-to-back event that saw the Olympic race take a number of big changes. After a three-week breather, the FIVB has returned to Europe for the final two events of the Olympic race. The first, in Sochi, Russia, begins tomorrow.
Well, it sort of began on Tuesday. Chasing Gold founder Travis Mewhirter was competing in the first four-star of his playing career, winning a wild country quota match against Chaim Schalk and Theo Brunner (19-21, 21-17, 20-18) to earn a place in Wednesday’s qualifier.
On Wednesday morning, Mewhirter and Adam Roberts lost to Argentina’s Julian Azaad and Nicolas Capogrosso, who went on to qualify.
Which leaves the remainder of the Chasing Gold squad.
Up first of the Chasing Gold team is Sarah Sponcil and Kelly Claes, who will play Italy’s Viktoria Orsi Toth and Marta Menegatti at 9 a.m. local time (11 p.m. pacific). Emily Stockman and Kelley Kolinske will see Germany’s Victoria Bieneck and Isabel Schneider at 10:50 local time, (12:50 a.m. pacific).
The men have no specified times, as it depends on how quickly the first few waves of women’s matches go. However, they do have opponents, as Tri Bourne and Trevor Crabb will meet Germany’s Lars Fluggen and Nils Ehlers.
Sochi is the penultimate event of the Olympic race. Bourne and Crabb will need to finish fifth or better to remain in the hunt for the Tokyo Games. Stockman and Kolinske, too, will need a big finish, with medaling in both Sochi and next weekend’s event, in Ostrava, to qualify. Claes and Sponcil, meanwhile, do not have such an uphill battle. One medal in the next two events will qualify them for the Olympic Games.
