Empowered Vanuatu aims for new heights in beach volleyball with a goal to qualify for Paris 2024
It has been a case of so close yet so far for Vanuatu beach volleyball when it comes to qualifying for the Olympic Games. Twice, the Pacific Ocean Island nation has come so close to featuring at the Games, only to fall short at the final hurdle.
Most recently, they missed out on a place at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 after being knocked out by Japan in the 2021 Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) Continental Cup, where the winner, China, gained direct qualification. In 2016, Vanuatu also narrowly missed out on Rio 2016, after being ranked 16th in the FIVB Olympic Rankings. Only the top 15 teams secured automatic qualification through the Olympic rankings with a max quota of 2 teams per nation.
However, Vanuatu Volleyball Federation (VVF) President Debbie Masauvakalo believes that the team’s fortunes are about to change. She sees Paris 2024 as a realistic target for the Vanuatu women’s beach volleyball team, thanks to the transformative Volleyball Empowerment programme. This programme aims to empower national teams to reach their full potential, and Debbie Masauvakalo is confident that the girls have now come of age.
It would be a fitting moment of triumph for both Vanuatu and Masauvakalo, who first arrived on the island as a volunteer from her home country of Australia in 2004. Over the last two decades, Masauvakalo and the Vanuatu women’s beach volleyball team have gone from strength to strength.
“When I first came here in 2004, I immediately noticed their potential in beach volleyball. The players did not have the height for indoor volleyball, but they were athletic and could jump quite high. They also had good court vision and showed great passion for the game from the beginning.
“Since beach volleyball is easy to set up and Vanuatu is an island nation, it was easy to settle on beach volleyball. We started the national team programme in 2007 and a year later played our first international competition (qualifiers for the Olympic Games Beijing 2008) where we lost all our matches,” recalled Masauvakalo.
VVF President Debbie Masauvakalo (second from left) takes a selfie with the women’s beach volleyball national team players and physios during a competition in early 2023 (Photo credits: VVF)
Vanuatu now commands huge respect in the region. Debbie Masauvakalo, however, notes that reaching this level has required a great deal of sacrifice,…
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