The Australian star enters the Olympic year with Paris in her mind – read the exclusive Volleyball World interview
Mariafe is close to making her third Olympic appearance and is determined to win gold in Paris, one of her favorite cities in the world
The 2024 Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour season will start a little bit earlier for Mariafe Artacho and Taliqua Clancy than for the other elite teams from around the world as the Australians are set to get on the court this weekend in their home sand of Mollymook, which will host the first Futures event of the year.
The tournament will mark the start of what should be a big year for the two, who are set to make their third Olympic appearances (and their second as partners) and will be looking to build from the silver medal they won three years ago in Tokyo.
Before thinking about the Paris 2024 Games properly, Clancy and Mariafe have, however, to finalize their qualification process. Since they only played in ten events since the start of the qualification period, the Australians need two more finishes to reach the minimum number of 12 events in order to be eligible to earn one of the spots in play via the FIVB Olympic Rankings.
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Since they are also entered to compete at next week’s Doha Elite16, that shouldn’t be a problem for much longer for the two, who currently have 6,780 points and would be ranked eighth if they had enough finishes – the top 17 teams in the list will qualify for Paris 2024.
Clancy and Mariafe might not have played a lot in 2023, but they were fairly successful when they did, medaling in three events (silver at the Uberlândia Elite16 and bronze at the Doha Elite16 and the Tepic Elite16) and making another two semifinal appearances (World Championships in Mexico and Beach Pro Tour Finals in Doha). The good recent results and the solidness of a partnership that started seven years ago give the Aussies the foundations to battle the tops teams in the world for another season.
Just a few days before their season officially starts, Mariafe took the time to catch up with Volleyball World in an exclusive interview:
Volleyball World: How did the offseason go for you? Did you do anything fun or different?
Mariafe: “Offseason was great. It felt a little bit short because we finished our season so late last year, but it was definitely a much-needed break for us.”
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Asian Volleyball Confederation…