Olympics qualifying Tournament News

Here are some aggregated news from around the net regarding athletes & Olympics qualifying tournaments which are their tickets for the all important 2008 Beijing Olympics in China.

Olympic qualifying hockey tournament continues in Buderim - The 2008 Beijing Olympic qualifying hockey tournament continues tomorrow at Buderim on Queensland's Sunshine Coast hinterland. Last night, the Australian women's team beat New Zealand 1-0 to secure the top spot. They will play Papua New Guinea tomorrow, while the men's team will play New Zealand after demolishing Papua New Guinea earlier this week 35-0. Hockey Australia spokesperson Georgie Herbert says the top two women's teams and the winning men's team from the tournament will qualify for the Beijing Olympics. "By the end of the week we will have had each team play each other once, with the top two teams then playing off on Sunday afternoon for what we call the Oceania Cup, for each of the men and the women. The top two teams for the women will go through to qualify for the Beijing Olympics and then just the top ranked men's team from those three countries will win a spot in the Beijing Games."

Cuban Judo Coach Positive about Beijing Olympics - The head coach of the Cuban men’s judo team, Justo Noda, is hopeful that the team will win a few seats for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games during the 25th World Championships that begin Thursday in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.Noda said the team has trained hard, especially during the second term of the current training cycle. The team has participated in several international competitions in Cuba, Brazil, Venezuela and Canada, including the 15th Pan American Games. They have also carried out training sessions in high-altitude regions of Ecuador.“Now our goal is to secure places for the Beijing Olympics,” said the coach who is aware that the only opportunity left after this championships will be the Judo Pan-Am scheduled for May, 2008 in Miami, US. Noda said that Yordanis Arencibia has the best chances of winning a ticket to the Olympics. Arencibia has won three bronze world medals and a bronze at Athens 2004. Other hopefuls are Oscar Braison (+100kg), who finished 5th in El Cairo; and Oreidis Despaigne (100kg), both Pan-American Champions.

The Canadian Olympic Committee vaccinates athletes against serious travel - related illness in preparation for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games - The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) announced today that it is equipping Canadian athletes competing in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games with a vaccine to protect against Travellers' Diarrhea - a health concern and serious performance issue for athletes heading to China. DUKORAL(R), an oral vaccine has been donated by sanofi pasteur to the Canadian Olympic Team for 2007 training in Beijing and for the Olympic Games in 2008. By the opening ceremony, a total of 500 athletes and team members will have been vaccinated against Traveller's Diarrhea."The Canadian Olympic Committee weighed all of the information and data before making this important decision," said Dr. Bob McCormack, Chief Medical Officer for the Canadian Olympic Team. "The Committee was proactive in looking at risk reduction methods to protect our athletes while in China. We took a preventative approach because we want our athletes to be able to compete at the Games and not be sidelined by travellers' Diarrhea at a time of such critical importance."

OCM Confident More Athletes Will Qualify For Beijing - The Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) is highly confident that more athletes will qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. OCM president Tunku Imran Tuanku Ja'afar said as the qualification rounds for certain games had only just begun, athletes of some disciplines stood a chance for qualification. Citing examples like hockey, cycling and badminton, he said, some athletes were in the midst of fighting for their berths in the Olympics. "These disciplines have great potential in bringing the medals for the country, and I hope they (athletes) are ready to shine at the international level," Tunku Imran told reporters after launching the Samsung Torchbearers selection programme at the OCM building today. Currently, only five national athletes have qualified for the Beijing Olympics 2008. They are Roslinda Samsu (athletics), Daniel Bego (swimming), Bryan Nickson Lomas (diving) and two archers, Muhammad Marbawi Sulaiman and Cheng Chu Sian. At the 2004 Athens Olympics, 26 athletes qualified for the games. Their disciplines comprised archery, athletics, diving, rhythmic gymnastics, swimming, cycling, shooting, yatching, badminton, taekwondo and weightlifting.

Sandeep, Shikha striving for Olympic berths - There is a frenetic bid by the Indian swimmers to make the qualifying cut in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Competing against the world’s best has been a dream for the Indian swimmers and as former Indian Olympian, Sebastian Xavier, said: “The sheer stage of the Olympics pumps up your adrenalin and we get to know where we really stand in world swimming”. It is for that special moment a handful of Indian swimmers are sweating it out to get into the qualifying bracket before July 2008. Already, the 15-year-old boy wonder of Indian aquatics Virdhawal Khade has made the cut in 200m freestyle and the other lad who is just outside the bracket is the 17-year-old Delhiite, Sandeep Sejwal. The talented breast-stroker is just off the 100m mark of 1:03.72s after a meet record of 1:04.5 in the Asian age group event.

John set to miss Olympic qualifier - STRIKER Jaycee John will miss Bahrain's third Group 'B' match in the 2008 Beijing Olympics final soccer qualifying round against hosts Uzbekistan tomorrow at the Bukhara Central Stadium in Samarkand. John was suspended by the Bahrain Football Association (BFA) after missing a number of training sessions before Bahrain's 0-1 defeat to South Korea last Friday at the National Stadium. The 21-year-old Nigerian-born striker scored a brace as Bahrain came from a goal down to beat hosts Syria 2-1 in their opening match at Al Hamdania Stadium last month.

Weber State runner chasing her Olympic goal - Until just a few months ago, Ogden's Lindsey Anderson never envisioned herself as an elite international athlete. She figured she would finish her college track eligibility at Weber State, maybe run a fall marathon while finishing her degree, and then settle down to start a family. Ten minutes on the track changed everything. When Anderson ran the best 3,000-meter steeplechase of her life to start her final college season barely five months ago, she began to realize just how far her talent could take her. And once that happened, the 22-year-old Morgan native discovered a whole new frontier for her running career - a revelation that she now believes will deliver her to a historic starting line at the 2008 Beijing Games in China next summer.

CAS suspends Tunisian swimmer Mellouli for 18 months, still eligible for Beijing Olympics - Tunisian swimmer Oussama Mellouli was banned for 18 months Tuesday for a doping violation and stripped of the gold and silver medals he won at the world championships. Mellouli, who tested positive for amphetamines at a meet in Indiana on Nov. 30, 2006, was suspended by the Court of Arbitration for Sport after an appeal for a 2-year ban was filed by swimming's world governing body. The ban, which dates back to the time of the doping offense, leaves Mellouli eligible to compete at next year's Beijing Olympics. Mellouli won gold in the 800-meter freestyle and silver in the 400 freestyle in March at the world championships in Melbourne, Australia. He was the first Tunisian to win a gold medal at a world championships.


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