T&T's chances of advancing to the Fourth and final round of the NORCECA Inter-Continental Men's Beach Volleyball Olympic qualifiers in Acapulco, Mexico, next month took a hit with the late withdrawal from the Third Round of qualifiers by top player, Fabien Whitfield.
Whitfield was due to depart T&T yesterday along with playing partner, Daneil Williams and T&T second team, Simon Blake and Colin Bernard for the Third Round of qualifiers which takes place in Pigeon Point, St Lucia from Friday until Sunday featuring 11 other teams.
However, the injury bug struck the all-Toco team as Whitfield was forced to pull out of the team due to a back injury sustained on the weekend, and was replaced by Defence Force's Christian Francois.
The omission of Whitfield will be a major blow for T&T, as he along with Williams have been very consistent on the NORCECA Beach Tour this year.
The duo captured a first ever silver medal on the fourth stop of the 2016 NORCECA Beach Volleyball Circuit in Costa Rica last month to add to their three previous bronze medals won on the tour since making their debut in 2008.
Whitfield and Williams also have a fifth placed finish in Cayman Islands, fourth place in Guatemala City's opening leg in March, while they were also ninth (Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico) and sixth in La Paz, Baja, California Sur as well as eighth in their last tournament play at the start of the month, in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.
The performances by Whitfield and Williams has lifted the pair to third place overall in the points table with 680, behind USA (900) and Canada (820) while Guatemala (535) and Mexico (480) complete the top five.
But with Whitfield now out of this weekend's action, Blake will partner Whitfield, in another all-Toco pairing while Francois will combine with Bernard. Last year when T&T hosted the Caribbean Zonal Volleyball Association (CAZOVA) Round One qualifiers, Whitfield and Williams and second pair, Tevin Joseph and Josiah Eccles won gold ahead of Jamaica.
This was followed by a runner-up finish in the CAZOVA/Eastern Caribbean Volleyball Association (ECVA) Second Round series held in Antigua & Barbuda in January of this year where T&T represented by Whitfield and Williams, and Francois/Blake were beaten in the final by US Virgin Islands.
Jamaica took third ahead of fellow qualifiers Curacao and the quartet along with fifth to eighth placed finishers St Lucia, Barbados, St Kitts/Nevis and Suriname will compete against Central America's qualifiers, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and El Salvador for qualification spots to the Fourth Round.