Tokyo, Japan, May 21, 2016 - The four teams to earn tickets for this year’s Olympic Games have all been decided on a dramatic penultimate day at the Women’s Olympic Qualification Tournament in Japan.
Host nation Japan, fellow Asian team Korea, and European teams Italy and Netherlands all secured their berths for Rio, despite both Japan and Korea losing five-set contests on Saturday.
Italy will go to their fifth consecutive Olympics after beating Japan 3-2 (23-25, 27-25, 27-25, 21-25, 15-9), while Japan will go to a record-equalling 12th Olympics on the strength of the single point their picks up for winning two sets.
The Netherlands were off to their first Olympics in 20 years after beating Peru 3-0 (25-16, 25-14, 25-17), while at the same time ending the Rio hopes of the young South Americans.
The Dutch came into the tournament as one of the favourites, and despite occasional hiccups, showed they will be competitive in Brazil.
The women have not been to an Olympics since 1996. captain Maret Balkestein-Grothues was eight at the time, but only remembers watching the Dutch men win gold.
Earlier, Thailand staged a dramatic comeback to keep their hopes of a first ever Olympics alive, while Korea confirmed as the first team in Japan to qualify for Rio after a dramatic 3-2 (19-25, 22-25, 29-27, 26-24, 15-12) win for Thailand.
The win gave Thailand two points and moved it to nine, at the time two points behind Japan, while Korea were safe on 13 points. It will be Korea’s 11th Olympic Games.
But Thailand were once again left one position short after Japan secured their point against Italy.
Not for the first time this week Thai fans were kept on the edge of their seats for more than two hours, while their team slipped and slid but, ultimately, held their nerve to post a memorable win.
A world-class performance by libero Brenda Castillo helped Dominican Republic to a 3-1 (25-20, 22-25, 25-12, 25-20) win over Kazakhstan, their first win of the tournament.
Castillo took control of the match in the final set to guide her team to victory in the battle of two winless teams looking for positives to take away from the qualification tournament.
With not much more to play for than pride and maybe a chance to blood some younger players with an eye to Tokyo 2020 it had the potential to be a dour affair.
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