Cuban beach volley duo to compete in Guatemala

HAVANA, Cuba, Mar 11 (acn) The Cuban duo Lianma Flores and Layla Martinez will compete this weekend at the first stop of the North, Central American and Caribbean (NORCECA) Circuit of Women's Beach Volleyball, based in Guatemala City.

Flores and Martinez, champions of the Veracruz 2014 Central American and Caribbean Games and runner ups of the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games, will debut today, according to the website of the contest.
The main objective of the Cuban duet is to continue training for the Olympic Qualifying tournament in Acapulco, Mexico, from June 21 to 27.
This year the NORCECA circuit will have 18 stages, and Cuba will only attend five of them, so they will try to make the most to get the only berth the qualifying tournament grants for the Brazilian Olympics, and its main opponents are the United States and Canada.
The American and Canadian duos -two by countries- could achieve their tickets through the world ranking, otherwise, the chances of Cuba will be minimal, not to mention Argentina's number one couple.
Meanwhile, in the men's sector, the duo of Sergio Gonzalez and Nivaldo Diaz will attend the second and third stops in Mexico, from March 31 to April 11.
Beach volleyball will have its Olympic stage at Copacabana beach, with the presence of 24 pairs -two by countries-, and there are only 22 seats contested, because Brazil already got two tickets, one by being world champion in 2015 and the other one by its host condition.
In addition to the 15 tickets that are distributed by the world ranking, five others are granted in the respective regional pre-Olympic tourneys and the last two seats will be conceded on a global qualifier, based in Sochi, Russia, from July 6 to 10.