It was bit­ter­sweet news for the T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion af­ter it was re­vealed that the na­tion­al women’s team was con­firmed as qual­i­fiers for the Birm­ing­ham 2022 Com­mon­wealth Games beach vol­ley­ball tour­na­ments while the men’s team missed out.

This is af­ter the Com­mon­wealth Games Con­fed­er­a­tion on Tues­day, con­firmed the 24 teams which will com­pete across the men’s and women’s events from Ju­ly 30 to Au­gust 7.

Cana­da, Aus­tralia, New Zealand, Gam­bia and Rwan­da se­cured di­rect qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the men’s event due to their world rank­ings.

Eng­land will com­pete as the host Com­mon­wealth Games As­so­ci­a­tion, with South Africa, St Kitts & Nevis, Cyprus, Sri Lan­ka and Tu­valu se­cur­ing con­ti­nen­tal berths.

Mal­dives com­pletes the field for the men’s event af­ter be­ing grant­ed a bi­par­tite in­vi­ta­tion.

In the women’s com­pe­ti­tion Cana­da, Aus­tralia, Van­u­atu, New Zealand and Cyprus se­cured the five di­rect qual­i­fi­ca­tion spots, with Eng­land al­so set to com­pete.

Scot­land, T&T, Sri Lan­ka, Solomon Is­lands and Ghana earned con­ti­nen­tal quo­tas, with Kenya re­ceiv­ing the bi­par­tite spot.

The T&T women will be mak­ing their sec­ond ap­pear­ance at the CG while Ghana, the Solomon Is­lands, Tu­valu, South Africa and Gam­bia will com­pete in beach vol­ley­ball com­pe­ti­tion at the Games for the first time.

Birm­ing­ham 2022 will mark the sec­ond ap­pear­ance of beach vol­ley­ball at the Com­mon­wealth Games, fol­low­ing the sport’s de­but at Gold Coast 2018.

“I am ex­cit­ed to see such a broad and tal­ent­ed group of teams rep­re­sent­ing beach vol­ley­ball in Birm­ing­ham this sum­mer in their pur­suit of Com­mon­wealth gold,” said Ary Graça, In­ter­na­tion­al Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion Pres­i­dent.

“The Com­mon­wealth Games is a key mul­ti-sport event in the glob­al sport­ing cal­en­dar, and I have no doubt the beach vol­ley­ball com­pe­ti­tion will show­case the very best of our sport.

“The ar­ray of na­tion­al teams rep­re­sent­ing our sport at the event is tes­ta­ment to the glob­al ap­peal of beach vol­ley­ball and the im­pact of our ef­forts to de­vel­op the sport world­wide.

“We will al­so see even more coun­tries rep­re­sent­ed in beach vol­ley­ball at Birm­ing­ham 2022 than at the sport’s de­but at Gold Coast 2018.”

Beach vol­ley­ball was in­clud­ed as an op­tion­al sport by Birm­ing­ham 2022 or­gan­is­ers, with the event tak­ing place at Smith­field.

“Con­grat­u­la­tions to 24 out­stand­ing teams who have qual­i­fied for the men’s and women’s beach vol­ley­ball com­pe­ti­tions at the Birm­ing­ham 2022 Com­mon­wealth Games,” said Dame Louise Mar­tin, Com­mon­wealth Games Fed­er­a­tion Pres­i­dent.

“We are set for an ex­cit­ing event at Smith­field, right in the heart of Birm­ing­ham’s city cen­tre, and I know the world-class ath­letes com­pet­ing will show­case the very best of Com­mon­wealth sport.”

At the 2018 Com­mon­wealth Games in Gold Coast Aus­tralia, T&T was rep­re­sent­ed by Daynte Stew­art and Daneil Williams in the men’s com­pe­ti­tion with St Kitts & Nevis the oth­er Caribbean qual­i­fi­er while in the women’s com­pe­ti­tion Rheeza Grant and Ab­by Black­man were the mem­bers of the T&T women’s team with Grena­da the oth­er Caribbean par­tic­i­pants.

The T&T men fin­ished sev­enth af­ter los­ing in the quar­ter­fi­nals, while Grant and Black­man tast­ed de­feat in the quar­ter­fi­nals for a sev­enth-place fin­ish as well.

Com­ment­ing on the se­lec­tion of the women and omis­sion of the men from the CG, T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion pres­i­dent, Day­main Stew­art said he can’t re­al­ly say he was sur­prised by T&T be­ing rep­re­sent­ed in the sport, but at the same time, he ex­pressed his dis­ap­point­ment in that the lo­cal men did not qual­i­fy al­so.

He added, “At this point in time the se­lec­tion and non-se­lec­tion is what it is and we now have to fo­cus on the goal ahead. We have a num­ber of women ath­letes in train­ing and our pol­i­cy dic­tates that we have a qual­i­fy­ing event to de­ter­mine the fi­nal team to rep­re­sent T&T and that should lead to some very ex­cit­ing times in the next few days or weeks or two.

“So we are very proud of the achieve­ment for the women, but at the same time a bit dis­ap­point­ed that the men are not in as well”.

With re­gards to the men’s fail­ure to be among the par­tic­i­pants in Birm­ing­ham, Stew­art ex­plained, “Even though the men are very high­ly ranked we are aware as to why they haven’t qual­i­fied as over the last two years we would have tak­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­pose a num­ber of ath­letes, so no one team would have at­tained that high rank­ing and that’s the on­ly rea­son that an­oth­er Caribbean coun­try (St Kitts & Nevis) is ahead of us in the men, but we will do our best to en­sure that our women team is pre­pared and ready for the Com­mon­wealth Games.