beach volleyball

Tuvalu overcome 3-day voyage to spring beach volleyball surprise

In Tuesday’s pool matches at Apia Waterfront, Tuvalu’s Saaga Malosa and Amalamo Talake defeated PNG’s Richard Batari and Loi Walo in straight sets, although the PNG pair are not the same players that won gold at the Port Moresby XV 2015 Pacific Games.

Along with the rest of Team Tuvalu, Malosa and Talake endured a three-day voyage to reach Samoa. They only arrived on Saturday before attending Sunday night’s opening ceremony and going straight into action on Monday.

PNG begin defence of men’s beach volleyball gold

On the new courts at Apia Waterfront, PNG won the first set 21-17 and the second 21-7, playing with a new line-up of Richard Batari and Loi Walo, in place of Port Moresby 2015 Pacific Games gold medalists Richard Kilarupa and Mea Moha.

Day one of competition saw six games played in the men’s competition in front of a capacity crowd at the free event.

Cheered on by packed crowds, Samoa won the first set 25-23, Tahiti took the second 21-12, and Samoan claimed the last set 15-11.

Kilarupa will be missed

But alas, everything has an end.

Richard Kilarupa’s reign has finally come to a close, and playing partner Moha Mea says Kilarupa’s playing style and skill will be missed.

“Our partnership is more like a family relationship on and off the court.

“The reason being we lived together and became sort of family.  

“Our partnership is one-of-a-kind.

“We don't usually talk but we know what we are capable of doing on the court,” Mea states.

Beach volleyball starts to unveil contenders

On Tuesday’s fixture, six games took place down at the new Korman courts,which started early and as scheduled 9am and entertained the crowd for over four hours of action and excitement in both the Men’s and Women’s competition.

Solomon Islands Women’s team won its first game taking the match two sets to nil against Tuvalu. The second match between the hometown heroes of Vanuatu and Wallis & Futuna was unsurprisingly dominated by Linline Matauata and Loti Joe taking the match two sets to nil.

PNG finish second and third at qualifiers

The men’s team went down to Fiji 2-1 (21-18, 21-18, 15-8) in what was a highly entertaining encounter.

But it was the Fijians who came back strong to win the deciding final set to book their spot at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Third place in the men’s went to Solomon Islands.

The Fijian women’s team will also be joining their men’s team in Gold Coast next year after defeating Solomon Islands 2-0 in the final playoff.

Solomon Islands settled for second place at the qualifiers while PNG finished third.

Vanuatu survive big push by Tonga

Vanuatu won 2-1 (21-19, 20-22, 15-13) in three closely contested sets at BSP Stadium.

“We feel great winning this match but credit to our opponents who played very well,” said Vanuatu captain Isaac Mael.

In other men’s matches, Papua New Guinea defeated Northern Marianas 2-0 and Fiji beat Tuvalu 2-0.

In the women’s matches, New Caledonia defeated Fiji 2-0, Vanuatu beat Guam 2-0 and Tahiti overcame Tuvalu 2-0.

Beach volleyball stretched for seats

The code is being played at the BSP Stadium outer field.

Beach  volleyball does  not have a huge following in the country, but it certainly has spectators hooked up to watch.

From our estimate the seating capacity is less than 100. 

PNG whip Nth Marianas at stadium

In front of their vocal home crowd, Richard Kilarupa and Moha Mea trashed the Northern Marianas in the first two sets, 21-10 and 21-0 to record their victory.

The beach volleyball competition of the XV Pacific Games got going this morning at the BSP Stadium outer arena.

PNG’s final game for day one will be played at 4pm.

PNG men play Tonga and PNG and American Samoa ladies will go into battle. 

Beach volleyball set to go

Beach volleyball is a new sport in Papua New Guinea but seats for this event at the Pacific Games are almost full at the venue.

PNG and Northern Marianas men play on Court 1 and the ladies from New Caledonia and Fiji play at court two 

Beach Volleyball technical officials set for Games

Referees, line scorers, ball retrievers and sand levelers successfully completed a week training to up skill themselves.

The training provided an overview of the rules of the Game, protocols, medical, disputes, misconducts, philosophy of beach volleyball and working together in understanding how the Game is played.

Federation of International Volleyball (FIVB) referees technical delegate Richard Casutt said they have a lot of experience which made it easy for them to understand the content of the training.