27 Jan 2012

Sport: Vanuatu volleyballers begin preparations in NZ

11:31 am on 27 January 2012

Vanuatu's top beach volleyballers will get some valuable match practice in ahead of next months Asian Zone Olympic Qualification event in New Zealand.

Starting on Friday they're competing in the second annual North Harbour Open at Mairangi Bay, along with teams from Netherlands, Great Britain, USA, New Zealand and Germany.

The squad also competed in Australia earlier this month and Henriette Iatika says everything is progressing well towards their goal of competing in this years Olympics.

"We'll do our best to make the qualifications. We started a couple of years ago and we gave our best to qualify for the Olympics and hopefully the event will come."

The top three countries from next months qualifying event in Mount Maunganui will advance to the Asian Continental Final in June, from which the winner will qualify for London.