Volley duo pursues Beijing dream

The Philippine pair of Heidi Illustre and Diane Pascua rekindled its flickering hopes of making the 2008 Beijing Olympics by making it to the main draw in the Seoul leg of the Swatch FIVB World Tour.

Illustre and Pascua shocked 2006 Doha Asian Games silver medalists Shinako Tanaka and Eiko Koizumi of Japan, 22-20, 21-17, in the qualification round to barge into the main draw for the first time since the Phuket, Thailand leg in November last year.

Earlier, Illustre and Pascua, the 2005 Manila Southeast Asian Games bronze medal winners, won via forfeiture over Norway’s Janne Kongshavn and Kristine Wiig after Kongshavn suffered an injury a day before.

“It has been a long while since they (Illustre and Pascua) made it to the main draw, they need to perform well there to gain enough qualifying points to the Olympics,” said Tony Liao, who manages the Fil-Am duo.

For them to make it to Beijing, Illustre and Pascua must make it to the top 24 in the world, which is still a realistic possibility since the two are currently ranked 33rd in the world based on the provisional Olympic rankings by the FIVB of the world volleyball federation.

There are eight more FIVB Tour legs left in the calendar that are considered Olympic qualifying tournaments including four Grand Slam events in Berlin, Germany from June 9-14, Paris, France from June 16-22, Stavenger, Norway from June 23-28 and Moscow, Russia from June 30-July 5.

Other events considered as gateways to Beijing are set in Osaka, Japan from May 20-25, Barcelona, Spain from May 16-31, Stare Jablonti, Poland from June 2-7 and Marseille, France from July 14-20.  – Joey Villar